Breathing Underwater (19 page)

I do. For her it would be a constant reminder of losing Joe. Rubbing salt in wounds: the cruel sea, always there, less than a mile away in all directions. Then there's the fact there's no proper shops. No work. Hardly any neighbours. And being right next door, practically, to Dad's parents, lovely as they are . . . she wouldn't want that either. Plus it's hundreds of miles away from her friends, of course, and from my school . . . and in winter you get stranded for days. OK, a million good reasons why not.

‘Well,' I say, changing the subject. ‘Are you and Mum coming over?'

‘For the Bank Holiday weekend.
I
am, anyway. Your mother doesn't think she's ready yet.'

‘Is she there? Can I talk to her?'

‘Not right now. Not a good time, love. Tomorrow, maybe.'

I give up. I put the phone down. I think about Mum, ghostly thin, still grieving. She doesn't even want to speak to me, now.

 

I wish Evie hadn't made me speak to Dad. It's stirred everything up again. But maybe because of that, I get Danny's scrap of paper out again and without letting myself stop to change my mind I just dial the number.

Evie's clattering around in the kitchen. I kick the door to while the phone rings and rings. It's a landline, not a mobile. No one answers. I'm just about to put the phone down again when a voicemail clicks on. It's one of those automatic reply services, not a personal message.
The person you called is not available . . . please leave a message after the tone.

I clear my throat, then start talking. ‘This is a message for Samphire,' I say. ‘From Freya, Joe's sister, from last summer, remember? Can you call me? I'd like to talk to you . . . about Joe.' I leave my mobile number.

My hand shakes as I replace the handset. I'm shivering all over. It's in her hands now. All I have to do is wait.

Only later, lying on Joe's bed, do I start to wonder what exactly I've gone and done.

Maybe it wasn't even the right number. They could easily have moved. Wasn't Sam talking about that, even, last summer?

She probably won't phone back. Why would she?

If she knows about Joe, why would she?

And if she doesn't? No reason. She won't phone.

What if she does phone, and she doesn't know about the accident, and I have to tell her about everything? Imagine that.

What good will any of it do, now?

Have I just made another stupid mistake, Joe?

If only he'd answer.

His room seems emptier than ever. Nothing's ever moved in here, except when Evie cleans. His books, CDs, the shells and things, all lie untouched. The edges of the posters on the walls are beginning to curl. He'd have moved on from them by now, if he were still here. He'd have new pictures. You can't keep everything the same. You shouldn't want to.

Samphire's unsmiling face stares coldly down from the small photo over the door. I can't stand seeing it any longer. I pull a chair over, stand on it so I can reach to take it down. It's dusty, slightly yellow at the edges. I turn it over.

Scribbled on the back are two words and a date, in Joe's handwriting.

First time 18 August

First time for what? But I know really. I'm not that stupid.

It's horrible. It's like reading someone's diary when you absolutely know you shouldn't. I've gone too far, prying into his secret life, into places which are nothing to do with me. Suddenly and absolutely, as good as if he's saying it out loud, for real, I hear Joe's older-brother voice in my head:
Piss off, Freya. Get your own life.

Hands shaking, I tear the photo into tiny pieces. It's still not enough; I want to destroy the evidence completely. I shove the fragments into the fireplace and light them with a match from the box on Joe's shelf. A small flame licks along the torn edges. I watch the flame flare up and then die until there's just a tiny pile of ash-flakes in the hearth. It only takes seconds. I open the window wide to let out the stink.

The air outside is heavy and still. The scent of full-blown roses and something sour and disgusting, like rotting vegetation, rises from the flower bed beneath the window.

I'm sick of me.

I'm sick of all this searching and trying to work things out.

I straighten the bedspread, put the chair back in its place, check the fire's completely out, and go into my own room. I lie on the bed, don't turn the light on. The room gets darker, still I don't move. Evie knocks on the door, to see if I'm all right, and I call out
yes, just having an early night
, so she leaves me alone after that. I don't undress. I check my phone: no messages. I leave it switched on.

It's hot and stuffy even at this hour. I open the window wider, to get some air. My notebook's lying on the table: I pick it up and start leafing back through the pages I've written this summer, re-reading everything, looking at the doodles and sketches, retracing my steps. This summer. Last summer.

I stare at the drawing of the maze I did a while back. It's like a picture of my own mind: the way I go back and round, searching for a way through, taking wrong turnings and finding dead ends. All this searching, to find a way into the centre, to find out the truth of what really happened to Joe.

You could stop all that, I tell myself. It doesn't have to be this way. The simple truth is this: Joe died. I miss him so bad it's like a physical pain running through my whole body, like mineral through rock. But I can't change any of that. And maybe I'll never know, for real, what actually happened, and why. Maybe there are some things I can't know, and that's what I have to accept.

 

Right now, all I want to do is to clear the muddle out of my head, wash it away.

Wash it away.

Water. Cool and deep and dark and inviting.

Swimming.

The way it feels to swim, my arms and legs strong, driving me forward, and the water running over my head.

How simple everything is, reduced to that. One arm, and the other. Legs kicking. Moving forward. Free.

My heart's beating fast, my stomach fluttering. It's all I want to do now: swim. Even this late, in the dark, in the cold sea. Overwhelming, the need for it.

Evie's with Gramps in their room. I don't want her worrying about me as well, so I creep past their door, down the stairs, take my towel and my damp swimsuit from the rail in the bathroom, and slip out of the back door without her hearing.

The air outside is cooler than I expected. I hesitate, then open the shed door and take Joe's old wetsuit from the hook. Its weight over my arm makes me feel safe, as if Joe himself is close by.

It's not completely dark yet. Away from the lights of the house I can see well enough, once my eyes adjust. The sky is clear, a moon rising. The sea will be too high at the sand bar for safe swimming, so I aim for Beady Pool instead. As I come over the brow of the hill at the centre of the island I glimpse the lights from the pub; voices and laughter drift over in waves on the wind. I imagine everyone from the gig race, drinking and chatting outside. Matt. Danny.

The lane is deserted. No one sees me make my way down the path to the beach. The rising moon weaves a silvery path over the dark water, catching the tips of the waves limping in on to the sand between dark rocks. I don't stop to think about what I'm doing. I pull on the wetsuit – too big, but not as much as I expected, not enough to matter – and walk straight out into the waves, flinching as the cold water seeps in next to my skin. As soon as I'm deep enough I start to swim.

Twenty-four

 

 

Swimming at night is completely different from swimming in the light, in the daytime. The rocks either side of the beach loom blacker and bigger. It's harder to judge distances. The voice of the sea is louder, wilder, slapping against the rocks, scouring the shore. The water itself seems smooth, thicker than in the day, as if it's extra buoyant. I change stroke to front crawl.

Each long stroke takes me out further, till I'm beyond the rocks and can make out the dark line of the whole bay, right across to the black gap which is where the sand bar would be if the tide was lower. A slight frisson of fear ripples along my vertebrae; for the first time it feels slightly dangerous, being out alone on the water, at night. Every so often the sound of voices – singing – comes across the water from the pub. It's not so very far away. But no one knows I'm here. If I called out, no one would hear.

I stop swimming, turn on to my back, float. Bobbing on the black sea under this huge starry sky, I start to feel calm, lulled and soothed by the water that holds and surrounds me. Everything else drops away. Nothing matters. Sam, Huw, all that complicated stuff seems trivial and unnecessary. I give myself up to the water, float with my arms stretched out. But it won't let me stay still; now I've stopped swimming I can feel the pull and tug of the current drawing me out.

My body temperature is stable now, insulated by Joe's wetsuit. I flip over and start swimming again. The movement wakes me up: energy fizzes along every nerve and muscle in my body. I keep my breathing steady: in, out, long breaths that take the air deep inside, a flow along my blood. It seems completely right, swimming here by myself. The water, deep and clean and cold, washes through my mind, cleansing me of thought, until that's all there is: water. Clear and open and free.

With each forward pull of my arms I dip my face down, turn my head sideways, breathe, dip again. Steady, easy, regular strokes. Time doesn't mean anything any more. I can't tell if I've been swimming for ten minutes or an hour. I don't care.

I lift my head again, to check where I am. Water runs over my skull, down my face. My hair's plastered to my cheek, suddenly stinging with cold. I've had my eyes shut, and now they're open I see how dark it's become. The moon seems to have disappeared. My teeth are chattering: it's time to go back. My night swim has done exactly what I wanted. I feel strong and free and empty at last. No thoughts. Just me, here, now, swimming.

My eyes search for bearings. I can't tell for a moment where the line of land goes, or how far it is back to the beach. This side of the island you can't see the sweep of the lighthouse beam, just layer upon layer of darkness. For a second I wonder if I've somehow swum right out, past the end of the island altogether, and my belly tightens. Then the moon comes out from behind an edge of cloud, and I recognise a line of rock, blacker against the sky, where wind and rain have sculpted the rock into contorted shapes like gargoyles. The tide and the current have taken me way off course. I can just about make out where the beach should be, at Beady Pool. I start to swim back in that direction.

The tide must have turned. Ebbing, it's pulling away from the beach, so I'm having to swim against it. My arms and legs begin to ache. The dull needling in my stomach starts again; not pain, exactly, more like hunger, or fear. I mustn't get cramp now. I can't afford to float, to stop swimming, because the strong ebb tide will carry on, sweeping me out, relentlessly.

My breathing starts to become raggedy. I lose the rhythm and take a wrong breath, gulp water instead of air. The pain shoots deep into my lungs.

Just keep going. Steady. You're strong. You can do this. It's fine. Just water, and waves.

I try breaststroke: the different movement gives my arms a rest, but it's not strong enough to take me forward. The tide is more powerful than me. I don't seem to be getting any closer to the beach. Cold seeps into my flesh, my bones. My legs hurt. My chest aches.

A wave goes over my head just as I'm taking in a huge breath, and salt water fills my mouth. I spit it out; flail, panicking.

My mind's suddenly in overdrive.

This is how it happens: one minute you're in control. Then not.

The sea is not cruel, like Mum said, or even indifferent. It's just sea, governed by the laws of nature: it doesn't have feelings at all. The moon pulls the tides: the current sweeps out towards the open sea.

 

You're cold and you're tired, and you can't swim much longer. The wind gets up, the waves get bigger. You're drifting, the waves swamp you, carry you out further and further towards the line of jagged rocks at the end of the island, and there's nothing you can do, not any longer. You haven't the breath, the energy's sapped right out of you. So it goes on, and you're weaker and more exhausted.