Shallow Breath

by Sara Foster

  9

  Desi

  In theory, Desi had always known how much she was missing, but only upon seeing Maya had she been confronted by the extent of it. As always, the sight of her stalled Desi’s breath, this girl she and Connor had made all those years ago, her eyes the same shape as her father’s, her pout all Desi, and in her body all those echoes of the little girl she had been at sixteen, at six, at six months old. All the tiny details that a mother could so easily find.

  But Maya is different, too. She seems rangy and strong, while her face has thinned and tilted into an adult’s. Her body has lengthened, while her eyes have hardened with scepticism. Desi left one girl and has returned to another, not being there to witness the transformation.

  If she had been present, would she have even noticed these changes? Probably not – seen daily they were too small to be perceptible. But Desi’s absence has severed this flowing connection between herself and her daughter, and she is the one responsible. Her actions have sliced into their relationship and removed a chunk of precious, irreplaceable time. Would they always be aware of that now?

  Maya’s lack of welcome had hurt, but it was to be expected. Desi knows she has a lot of making up to do, and she is not sure how to begin. Adrift in contemplation, she finds she has driven right away from Lovelock Bay, past all the turnings for Two Rocks, and reached the next small town of Yanchep. She heads to the lagoon, where she has swum so often. She always considers it a treat to come down here, where the water is usually so calm, but today the swimmers are getting tossed about in the restless water. She considers going for a swim anyway – fighting the current would give focus to this floppy day – but decides against it.

  As she drives back up the coast, she searches for the familiar stone face in the distance, rising momentarily above the sprawl of bushland. The six-metre-high King Neptune was once the guardian of Atlantis, staring cheerfully over the marine park towards his ocean dominion. When the attraction had been closed, the swimming pools filled in and the buildings pulled down, he had been left there, alone. He still gazes out towards home, but vandals have painted his teeth lurid colours, coloured his eyes in red, and his expression has grown increasingly manic. Nowadays he no longer appears entirely happy – he looks as though he is gritting his teeth.

  A small shopping centre sits nearby, one of the high limestone walls bearing a faded blue sign that was once the Atlantis insignia – two dolphins leaping together through a circle. Desi leaves Chug in the car park there, and walks towards the site of the old marine park. The wire fencing has been cut away and peeled back, and she glances around to see if anyone is watching her trespass, but the place is quiet.

  She ducks behind a wall and follows a rough, broken trail, having to skirt and weave around thick bushes that have grown across it. After only a few metres, she comes across the winding path that leads to the statue. She makes her way up, treading carefully to avoid the scattered glass of broken beer bottles.

  At the top, she climbs a small set of wooden steps to sit in Neptune’s hand, her legs dangling over his outstretched fingers, just as they did when she came here for the first time. She had been with Rebecca then; they were ten years old, laughing as they climbed, carefree in the joy of discovery. They had waved at Hester and Marie, who’d taken photographs that Desi hadn’t seen for a long time. It had been a few years before Desi had swum with the dolphin. A few years before the cracks began to show.

  She studies the park site, trying to understand how the memory can remain so close and vivid when the intervening years have wrought so many changes in her life. Atlantis is now a monument to the tenacity of nature. The bush has leapt enthusiastically to reclaim the land for itself. One vision has replaced another.

  There are still a few big clues to what it once was, like King Neptune and the water tank that bears scratched and faded emblems of Atlantis and Coca-Cola. But there are plentiful other smaller remnants to be found, too, if you took the time to look: a flight of stone steps; a broken pipe; a retaining wall. For the park’s opening, a local sculptor had carved statues of celebrities that had stood at the twelve points of a clock face so large you could walk around it. As each hour struck, the voice or song of the corresponding artist had come booming from a speaker. When the park closed, the statues were pulled down. Some of the giant heads had been transplanted only a few hundred metres away, and lined the children’s play area next to the shops. Others had made it a kilometre or two down the road to a campsite and were rounded up on a small green there. Most had been creatively defaced. New generations of children clambered over them, unaware of their original context. The heads had given Maya nightmares when she was little.

  As Desi wanders down the path again, away from Neptune, she glances across to where the clock was sited. In the distance, Charlie Chaplin’s body remains on its own, his head gone elsewhere like the rest. Someone has attached one of the Scream masks to his neck instead.

  At the bottom of the path, she stops and listens, but hears only a graveyard of stillness. Thirty years ago, when the park was in its heyday, each morning had brought a rumbling of coaches and the hissing of brakes and doors. Ribbons of visitors had streamed out, all chatting and laughing as they wound around the park. A day at Atlantis was a day away from reality, and the relief of that – the joy of that – was infectious.

  Desi has an overwhelming desire to find the place where the dolphin pool was, to stand on the spot and remember the time when all her dreams had seemed so close she could touch them. She spies another hole in the wire fencing and sees a flight of broken, uneven stone steps. She begins to make her way down, doing her best to hold back the brittle branches that scratch her at every opportunity. A spider’s web catches on her forehead and she stops while she pulls off the clinging threads. She peers ahead of her and sees they are everywhere, strung across the pathway, a few of the large arachnids spread-eagled in the centres of their lairs, waiting. No one must have come this way for a while.

  Hastily she retraces her steps, and eventually finds another path running alongside a small stone wall. She passes a statue of a seal that towers above her, only just recognisable, huge chunks of its body missing, a smile still visible on its bashed-in face. The walkway eventually curves around and opens out into a wider track. In some places, the pathways are visible; in others, the sand has smothered them, along with more debris and the ever-present broken glass. She walks quickly over the bowed planks of a half-broken bridge, only realising she has gone too far when she reaches the rubble of a man-made waterfall that had been part of the boating lake. She retraces her steps and relocates the huge water tank in the middle of the scrub. If she gets across there, she will be able to orientate herself better. She walks through the bushland again, going slower this time, keeping a careful lookout for the spiders, which have trailed their webs between cars’-width gaps in the bushes. She almost treads on a large bobtail, frozen so still that if not for the catchlight in its black eyes she would think it were dead. She keeps going until she is next to the water tank, searching around for evidence of the pool. She must be practically on top of it now, but all she can see is the long, dry grass. After the close call with the bobtail, her thoughts have strayed to snakes.

  How can she not find the right spot? It had been enormous – four metres deep and twenty-three long by thirteen wide. How could it disappear so completely? And it wasn’t just the pool. There had been a grandstand, stage backdrops, gates, ice-cream vendors. She can still see the crowds gathering, smell the burgers and raw fish, hear the dolphins’ creaking, squeaking calls. How can there be nothing but wasteland? If the water tank wasn’t there, she would have no idea at all where the pool should be.

  She goes across to the tank and slides down until she is sitting with her back leaning against it. Disappointed, she closes her eyes so that the landscape falls away around her. And then she sees it all again.

  Desi is nearly eighteen, about to take part in her first show. She has been waiting f
or months, trained first as an understudy, desperate for someone to leave. Now she is standing to one side as people take their places in the grandstand. She has already spied her family: she can see Jackson looking for her, while Hester chatters to Marie, and Charlie stares at the pool. Rebecca is jiggling her knees up and down as she always does when on edge. Desi says a silent thank you that Rick isn’t there.

  Marie spots her and waves, and Desi raises her hand quickly then turns away. She doesn’t want to be distracted; she is nervous enough as it is. She is wearing a silver one-piece swimsuit, with silver cuffs around her wrists and ankles, and her face is smothered in make-up. She’s sure that by the end she will look like her features have melted.

  The sun beats down mercilessly, as it does most days of the Western Australian summer. If she moves a fraction, she can see over the rest of the park to a small patch of sea peeping at her from the horizon. Everything today feels like a pair of eyes on her: the squat water tower looming over them; the other performers regarding her nervously as an unknown quantity; and a dolphin cruising past in the pool below her, swimming on its side so that one eye peers up, assessing her.

  The music starts, and she takes a few deep, shaky breaths, before she hears her name and runs out into the arena.

  The dolphins are veterans. They know most of the routine before the signals, and are waiting in their next position long before she is, ready to go. Desi is doing well until she has to climb out with two other girls on the thin bar over the pool, ready to ride on the dolphins’ backs for the finale. She fumbles, trying to link arms with the girl next to her, who hisses, ‘Quickly!’ And then she stands on the wrong part of Frodo, who jolts to shift her, and she has to grab the rail, almost overbalancing. But once he has dislodged the discomfort, Frodo waits patiently until he can feel her weight. He remains very still, much more so than the others, as though sensing her inexperience and giving her a little longer to get into position. And then they are off, with fixed smiles and free arms flung wide, all Desi’s muscles tensed and one arm tightly linked with the girl next to her. The dolphins race around the pool in choppy lunges, until they meet the bar again. Desi grabs for it as instructed, holds on tight, and her feet are left swinging underneath her as the dolphins bolt away and the applause begins.

  Desi is still in costume when they find her afterwards. While she beams with happiness, her mother and Marie gush about how wonderful it was. Rebecca hugs her and laughs, relieved, while Jackson high-fives her and gives her a gap-toothed grin. Her father glares at her swimsuit, and then stands at the edge of the group, staring off towards the exit.

  There are two other shows that day, and both go well. Afterwards, the team invite her down to the beach to celebrate. One of the men has a slab of beer on his shoulder, and it doesn’t take long before someone has to go back for another, and another. As the sun goes down, the jokes and discussions begin. They tell Desi that her career in entertainment will be one of the shortest-lived ever. They tell her about the rumours that the park will be closing soon. She is dismayed, having only just got this gig. Please don’t take it from me, she prays.

  Eventually, the others slowly pack up and move on, urging her to leave with them. But Desi declines and stays there, gazing out across the water. Her father has agreed to take her home, but she doubts he is ready to leave the pub yet. Besides, she needs time alone to think. The euphoria swiftly followed by dejection has left her mind aching as her thoughts swirl. There is an alarming empty space where her future plans should be.

  She decides to watch the sunset. Then she’ll go across to the pub and find her dad.

  As the fiery colours of the sky begin to shift and coalesce, a small figure comes into view some distance away, walking slowly by the water, looking out to sea. Desi doesn’t recognise him, and, while he gets closer, she stays tense and still, aware she is alone with him in the semi-dark. As he goes by, he glances at her and smiles politely, then turns away. She relaxes, thinking that is it, but then he looks across again, as though checking something, and begins to walk over.

  Desi starts to get up.

  ‘Were you in the show this afternoon?’ he asks, his accent elongating the vowels of the final word.

  He has reached her quickly. He is not particularly tall, but seems strong and wiry, with long dark hair and an equally shaggy beard – most definitely the hippy type her father cannot stand.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought so.’ He sits down next to her without waiting for an invitation, takes a cigarette from his shirt pocket, lights it and begins to puff away, his eyes narrowing with each inhale.

  ‘Do you know that the dolphin’s main form of communication is sound?’ he asks. His eyes are as black as the deepest night, intent on the water in front of them.

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘And do you know they are never fully asleep? That they rest one half of their brain at a time? That while they are alive a part of them is always conscious?’

  Desi doesn’t answer. He is obviously going somewhere with this, and she is not sure of his tone.

  ‘It’s just, I often wonder what they listen to,’ he says, ‘I mean, right now, when it’s quiet above the water – no crowds, no trainers, no party tricks to perform.’ He gestures towards the ocean. ‘Do you think they listen to the ocean, during the long hours of the night when they are alone in there? Do you think they miss it, or know the sound of it as home?’

  Desi cannot come up with anything to say.

  ‘Sorry,’ he continues, taking another drag of his cigarette, the orange glow flaring in his eyes for a second. ‘I should have introduced myself.’ He holds out a hand. ‘I’m Connor.’

  Noise brings her back to the present – a burble of voices, getting louder. Desi jumps up as three teenagers come into view, clutching bottles wrapped in brown paper bags, laughing as they pick their way through the grass.

  They notice her at the same time, and all talking ceases. Desi smiles weakly, then puts her head down and hurries past, hearing them burst into laughter once she has disappeared behind the trees. They can’t be much more than sixteen – to them this has always been an adventure playground of ruins, full of hidden places to hang out.

  She is grateful when she’s inside Chug, away from everything broken and unsettling. She wants to get home to the shack. She wants to make plans. She reverses Chug a little too quickly and gets an irate beep from a vehicle behind her that she hadn’t noticed. Then she automatically turns left to drive around the headland towards home, forgetting in her distraction that this will take her past the scene of her crime.

  The Carlisle house. Everyone but Rick has long moved away, but he is still there. At least he was a couple of years ago. There are no clues as to who might be inside right now – only dark windows and an empty driveway.

  She wonders if Rick Carlisle talks to her father any more. She had never been certain if they really liked one other, or if it was circumstance that had drawn them together: the same occupation, and then finding themselves living alone within the same year. She hopes her actions might have ended their friendship for good now, all forty incomprehensible years of it.

  But that wasn’t the only bond she had broken. Her thoughts move swiftly to Rebecca. She wonders if her old friend thinks of her much nowadays, or if she would rather pretend that Desi didn’t exist. Perhaps Rebecca doesn’t even know she is home. And her heartbeat quickens as she realises it’s time to confront her mistakes, and seek forgiveness.

  10

  Pete

  ‘What do you know about a girl called Kate?’

  Pete has barely got through the door before Desi continues, ‘She’s Connor’s niece, Maya tells me. And she’s coming to see me, apparently.’

  ‘Maya’s told me about her, but I haven’t met her,’ Pete says, setting his bag down and giving Desi a kiss on the cheek. ‘How do you feel about it?’

  Is this the moment when Connor’s secrets will unravel for Desi? Pete asks himself. What will Kate
have to say?

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ Desi replies. ‘I just can’t imagine what she wants to see me for, after all this time. Especially when Connor’s family barely acknowledged us. Anyway, how was your day?’

  ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘The usual.’

  ‘How was Indah today? And the baby?’

  ‘Yeah, good.’

  He knows this is ridiculous. How long can he keep being vague before he has to actually lie? And why doesn’t he just tell her the truth? That he went to the zoo as a visitor this morning. And then spent the afternoon turning the house upside-down, searching for a letter he hasn’t seen in years, which he is desperate to show Desi before Kate turns up.

  Desi saves him from all this by changing the subject. ‘Maya will be here soon,’ she says. ‘We can ask her more about Kate. Meanwhile, would you like a drink?’

  ‘Please,’ he says. ‘A coffee would be great. And I need to talk to you about Maya.’

  Desi sets the kettle going and then turns back to Pete. ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘Well, I’m worried about her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s finished school now, but she’s got no plans. If you ask her, she just looks dreamy and says she’s having a break while she’s thinking about it. But she’s drifting, Desi, and I don’t like it.’

  Pete studies Desi closely, trying to read her thoughts. He is always uncomfortable when they have these conversations. Despite the fact he has been Maya’s surrogate father for all these years, both Desi and Maya seem to close doors on him when he acts too overtly parental. Especially if he says something they don’t want to hear. He thinks he can see Desi’s face shutting now. It makes him angry. Is he part of this family or not?