Breath

by Tim Winton

  Come on, Pikelet, she said soothingly. I’ve heard you guys talk. Spots, stars, tunnel vision.

  You want me to . . . hang myself?

  No.

  Well, there’s no way.

  Of course not.

  So, what then? What d’you want me to do?

  Eva became girlish for a moment. She put her fingers through my hair.

  I just want you to watch.

  Geez, Eva.

  It feels better; I can’t tell you.

  I dunno.

  And it’s safer. Like having a dive buddy.

  I sat up in bed, anxious and revolted. I hated the sharp leather smell already.

  I can’t, I said. You shouldn’t ask me.

  She sighed. Okay. Sure.

  Eva swept her props off the bed and began to dress. I felt the sudden weight of her disappointment. The day was over already. I’d be home early.

  I’m sorry, I said.

  Sure, she murmured, pulling on a tee-shirt.

  It’s just —

  I’ll make do on my own, Pikelet. I’m a big girl.

  But it’s not safe.

  Well, no guts no glory, huh?

  Sensing that I’d been dismissed already, I watched her rake a brush through her hair.

  What’ll you do?

  I have a mirror, she said, misunderstanding me. I can watch myself.

  Does Sando do this with you?

  She turned back to consider me.

  I don’t have to answer that.

  But how did it start?

  I’m not going to answer that either.

  She grabbed the end of the rumpled sheet as though she might yank it off me. I caught the ravishing curve of her breasts beneath the tee-shirt and felt a rush of panic at the idea of being cut off from her.

  I don’t want you to kill yourself, I said.

  I won’t. Not if you don’t let me.

  I took a handful of the sheet and jerked it so hard that she staggered a little. Her bad leg gave way and she braced herself against the bed. I reached up beneath her shirt and held her breasts and we stared at each other a moment before she took down her pants and lowered herself to me.

  I love you, I whispered.

  We’ll see.

  But not the belt.

  Okay, honey. We hardly need it.

  She pulled her shirt up and put a nipple to my lips and I fixed on it greedily, certain that I’d won a moral victory. But once we’d raised a sweat Eva disentangled herself, reached down beside the bed and brought up the cellophane bag.

  I wasn’t much of a partner in her game. I was mostly the audience, little more than a bit of bodyweight and a steady pair of hands. There were whale songs on the stereo now – otherworldly moans and clicks and squeaks. Eva lay on the pillow and pulled me back into her until we were panting again and then she pulled the bag over her face like a hood, twisting it tight against her throat so that it filled and shrank with every breath. The plastic was pink and translucent and behind it Eva’s features looked all out of focus. Pretty soon the bag fogged up and I could only see the contours of her nose and chin and the deep indentation of her mouth with each indrawn breath. She worked hard to get air. A sheen of sweat lay across her sternum and her labouring neck and the shine became beads and then runnels while the ghostly whales rumbled and squealed in the house around us. At her signal I did what I’d been told to do. I lay on her chest. And then I gently throttled her.

  Before she began to shudder I thought of boys falling to the ground in swoons. Mottled faces. Blue-white lips. The stiffened limbs of the poleaxed. Like steers given the bolt in the killing yard. And I remembered the way all sound and light shrank to the fineness of copper wire.

  The muscles of Eva’s pelvis twitched and clamped and I came before I saw that she’d lost consciousness, before I tore the bag away, before I even let go her neck. Only the dog stirred me into action. I didn’t even hear the poor creature come in but something had roused it from slumber down beside the stove for it was suddenly there on the bed, growling and butting and snapping at my arms.

  The bag came away with a hank of Eva’s hair. She was white-eyed and drenched. Her neck rippled with tiny tremors and I began to shout over the mad, scrabbling dog.

  Eva! Breathe!

  I was fifteen years old and afraid. Sex was, once more, a confounding mystery. I didn’t understand love or even physiology. I was so far out of my depth it frightens me now to recall it. Yes, I was scared but not nearly scared enough. I didn’t understand just how perilous Eva’s predicament was. With the dog there I didn’t dare slap her or shake her. I simply yelled.

  There was, at last, a snagging noise deep in her head. It was not unlike the sound the old man made in the middle of the night. Then there came a gasping spasm. Eva’s arms flew out so hard and suddenly that I took a blow to the ear. Her legs jerked. She began to whoop in air.

  I knew Eva was expecting me but I didn’t go back next day. Instead I got up early, limp with fatigue, and wandered through the forest in the misting rain. No one was about and I was grateful because I was a mess. The longer I walked and the hungrier and tireder I got, the angrier I became.

  I’d been an idiot; I saw it now. It wasn’t Eva’s fault her life had gone the way it had, and I didn’t blame her for whatever it was that she couldn’t or wouldn’t explain. She was what she was and I loved her. But I couldn’t kid myself it was mutual. She might require me now, but she didn’t love me. It had only been a matter of weeks but already I couldn’t think how it had begun. Had it been an accident, this thing between us, or did she plan it, right down to the advent of the cellophane bag? And why me? Because Sando wouldn’t play her game? He was a hellman but maybe there were things he just wouldn’t do – and here I was, too young and stupid to refuse her. How could he hold out so long? Eva Sanderson was not an easy person to deny. Did he resist out of love, or from discipline? Either way I admired him for this at least. I loved his wife. And I wished he’d come home and save me from her.

  I called her from school on Monday and at first she was peevish and then she cried. I’d rung to say it was over, that I couldn’t come out anymore, but I couldn’t get it said. By the time I hung up I felt like a bastard for making her cry.

  Next day the VW was out on the street at lunchtime in the shade beyond the gym. My heart jerked at the sight of it.

  I’m sorry, Eva said when I drew up to her window.

  I’m sorry too, I murmured.

  Let’s go for a drive, huh?

  I looked over my shoulder a moment. There were kids kicking a Fanta can across the netball courts.

  I’ve only got half an hour.

  Sure. Get in.

  We drove to the war memorial and looked out across the sound and all its islands and bays and sat for a time in silence. It seemed to me that she was working her way up to saying something important. And then she reached across and put a hand in my lap.

  You’re kind to me.

  Kind?

  Nobody’s as kind as you, Pikelet.

  Really?

  Really.

  She unbuttoned my pants and drew out my aching cock and went down on me there in the noonday carpark. Within ten minutes I was back at school.

  I didn’t call again all week but when Saturday came around I rode straight out to Eva’s. The dog seemed leery of me but she was smiling.

  I feel like walking, she said. You want to hike?

  What about your leg?

  I want to push it some.

  Well, I said. If you reckon.

  We hiked out across the wooded hills toward the cliffs with the dog darting ahead. There were no roads. We were unlikely to meet anybody out there but it was careless of us. Eva seemed relaxed. Her limp was only slight when we set out but by the time we got to the ridge overlooking Old Smoky she was in real pain.

  You okay?

  Fine.

  It doesn’t look good.

  I said it’s fine.

  But we stopped
at the edge of the windswept ridge and went no further. I stared out at the bombora, that day just a dark, intermittent lumping of swells in the distance.

  Kinda stupid thing to do, huh?

  Walk here, you mean?

  No, dummy. Paddle out there a mile to go surfing. Alone.

  Yeah.

  But I guess you need it.

  She was right but I didn’t respond. I didn’t really want to talk about it.

  I understand you, Pikelet. And I understand Sando. But he’s never had anything precious taken away.

  Eva —

  But you, she said taking my hand. You’re different. I can see it in your face. You’ve got this look. Like you’re expecting to lose something – everything – every moment.

  When she took my hand I felt electrified. I wanted to pull down her jeans and spread her legs and reach into her. I wanted to press her against the stony ground and fuck her until she called out my name. But she kept on talking and nothing happened and I stood there throbbing and half listening until she was yanking my arm and saying c’mon, let’s go back.

  Halfway home she couldn’t walk anymore. Her face was white. For a while she leant against me, bracing, hopping, until even that was too much and I was forced to piggyback her across the wild, uneven country. The first few seconds, when she hitched up and clamped her thighs around my waist and pushed her breasts tight to my back, I was delirious with pride and lust and a stupid sense of triumph. In my mind I was carrying her home like some warrior prince. She rested her hot cheek against my neck and I could smell the pear scent of her hair as I stepped it out. But the feeling only lasted a minute. She was heavy. I remembered how far it was to the house.

  By the time we got to her place I was spent. The sky was black with impending rain. The dog trailed us listlessly into the yard and slumped into the undercroft while I levered Eva the last few feet up the stairs.

  She snatched her pills and the hash pipe and lay back on the sofa until she could speak again.

  You’re right, she said. Right to expect it all to be snatched away from you, Pikelet. Because it will be. It can be. And hey, maybe it should be.

  I didn’t like the tone of her voice. I figured I’d better go.

  But I stayed. We took a bath together like people in the movies. We smoked a little hash and climbed into bed and when her plastic bag came out I did my best to please her.

  For a week or two Eva came by the school or I wagged classes and met her on the wharf so we could drive out to lonely beaches. We grew more reckless and impulsive and so tired that when we weren’t at each other we were bitching like married people. And on weekends, despite myself, I strangled her.

  I hated it. In time I saw that for her everything else was mere courting, payment for what she really wanted. I hated the evil, crinkly sound of the bag and the smeary film of her breath inside it. I came to hate all masks and hoods and drawn faces without features and in retrospect I see that I probably hated Eva as well.

  Somebody once told me I was a classical addictive personality. I laughed at her. She threw a plastic cup of water in my face and I sat there smiling at the thousand cuts down the inside of her arms. Staff appeared around us crisp and silent as ghosts.

  When I was born, I said, I took a breath and wanted more. I found my mother’s nipple and sucked. I liked that. I wanted more. That’s called being human.

  I know what you are, the woman murmured.

  Yes, I said. You’re the expert.

  They led her away to dinner and I sat there alone with my sneer as the tears leaked out of me.

  The last sucking bubble of consciousness. The rising gorge of panic. Yes, a delicious ricochet of sparks.

  I suppose I knew well enough what it felt like. It was intense, consuming, and it could be beautiful. That far out at the edge of things you get to a point where all that stands between you and oblivion is the roulette of bodymemory, the last desperate jerks of your system trying to restart itself. You feel exalted, invincible, angelic because you’re totally fucking poisoned. Inside it’s great, feels brilliant. But on the outside it’s squalid beyond imagining.

  As a kid I didn’t know what respiratory acidosis was, nor could I even begin to comprehend the sheer unpredictability of premature ventricular contractions and the manner in which they can shunt a body into cardiac arrest. I was as dim and horny as any other schoolboy, a sucker for excitement, and I’d been scaring the shit out of myself since primary school, but each time I let go Eva’s throat and ripped the slimy bag off her face I didn’t see rapture. What I saw was death ringing her like a bell.

  So I began to deceive her. I had to. I’d come to resent Eva Sanderson but I didn’t want her to die. And I certainly didn’t want to be the patsy left behind, the fool calling the ambulance, the one whose fingermarks were up and down her neck like hickeys. I was scared to the point where I couldn’t even get it up anymore, so I began to fake it. In the end I was faking it all. She saw to herself anyway; she was on automatic by then.

  When she wanted me to choke her I learnt that I could brace myself on my elbows, give her a sense of my body on hers, without letting my full weight down. When I held her throat I made all the noise of exertion while applying less and less pressure. I slipped my fingers under the bag to break the seal. I blew air across her face while pretending to shout at her. Sometimes I didn’t even touch her throat at all. I held my palms over her neck and asked her could she feel it, could she feel it, and she felt it because she expected it, because I was there and she expected it. She was blind in her foggy bag, intoxicated by the idea of what she was doing, and I hovered, palms down, like some kind of boy-shaman, willing life into her, holding off the shivering darkness.

  I wonder if she ever knew. She did become more and more irritable, as if sex no longer satisfied her. Once when I began to giggle at how stupid we looked, how ludicrous it was to be lurching and growling about like this while the dog scratched at the door, she slapped me so hard that I rode home and lay on my narrow bed and shouted at my mother to please turn the bloody vacuum off and get a life.

  I faked it. I wanted her, wanted to be free of her. Yet I was afraid of her. And afraid for her. I was trapped. It was as if some mighty turbulence had hold of me, and nothing – not even Sando’s return – would ever rescue me.

  But something did come. A bolt of indigo lightning. The livid vein that had begun to fork across Eva’s tight belly. You couldn’t mistake it. Not even I was so dense as to miss it.

  I was on the bed one afternoon, spent and full of loathing, when she limped up naked from the steaming bathroom, a towel coiled on her head. It was right there in front of me.

  Eva, I said. You’re pregnant.

  Something in her face gave way. She ricked the towel down and tied it about her waist. In a few more weeks she’d need a bigger towel.

  I was fixing to tell you.

  Really?

  Go home, she murmured. The fun’s over now.

  Fuck, I said. Fuck you.

  C’mon, she murmured. You knew it had to stop somewhere. I can’t do this shit with a baby coming.

  Is it mine?

  Don’t be absurd.

  I tried to count back but I didn’t even know which numbers I required.

  I can’t believe it.

  Well, believe it. It’s true.

  Even as I lay there I felt my shock becoming relief. Not so much that the child was not mine, but that I’d been delivered. A new force had stepped in to present her with a defining choice.

  Eva went back down to the bathroom and wiped the steam-fog from the mirror and brushed out her hair while I stood in the doorway to watch. I considered her wide shoulders and broad back, her narrow waist, the square, womanly buttocks and the way she favoured one leg even while dragging a brush through her long, wet hair. I felt strangely bashful, as though we’d been restored to our proper roles. Here I was again, a visitor in her house, a schoolboy standing unbidden in the doorway to a grown woman’s bathroom. T
he plain light of Saturday afternoon was everywhere in the house.

  You want me to chop some wood?

  No, she said. Thank you. Go home.

  On Sunday I surprised my father by joining him at the back fence to slash the winter weeds and burn what couldn’t be hacked down. He seemed hesitant, almost fearful in my company. At day’s end as we tended the smouldering edges of the firebreak with bag and hose he cleared his throat and spoke.

  I had Loonie’s old man here yesterday.

  Oh, yeah? I said.

  You know he’s not my sort of fella.

  I know what you mean.

  But he’s been talking about the people you see out the coast. Says Loonie’s gone off the deep end. Won’t listen to reason. Son, he used to be your mate.

  Yes, I said.

  I don’t understand it. But I don’t think you should go out there anymore.

  I nodded. If you like.

  He smiled and I felt cheap about how easy this was to concede to him when a month ago I would have told him to mind his own business.

  Good boy, he said, wiping ash across his stubbled chin. Good lad.

  Little more than a week later Sando returned. He came running out from the BP servo in Sawyer and I nearly shat myself. He looked dark and grizzled and happy.

  Hey, he said. I’m gunna be a father.

  Far out, I said. I thought she looked different.

  Incredible, eh.

  Yeah. Man, congratulations.

  We shook hands awkwardly.

  Shit, he said, holding my hand with a grip just short of painful. You chopped a bloody lot of wood out there, mate.

  Well, I said. Not much swell.

  Didn’t want you to think I don’t notice these things.

  I laughed uncertainly. I couldn’t read him. I wondered if the smudgy bruises on Eva’s neck had lingered, or if I’d left something out there to give myself away. It occurred to me later they could have fessed up to one another about their weeks apart, and perhaps this was their way.

  Hey, how was the trip? I stammered.

  Lively.

  Did you get waves?