Breathing Underwater (7 page)

Ten

 

 

‘It's a swimming day!' I tell Evie in the kitchen.

‘How are you, this morning?'

‘Completely better.' I give Evie a hug. ‘The sun makes everything seem OK.'

‘Why don't we take a picnic, have a swim and go over to Gara? The three of us, together. Go and tell Gramps. He's in the garden.'

I find him up by the hives, at the far end of the garden, reciting lines from some poem to the bees. He often does that. He says it calms them down.

‘ “
Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
” '

He stops when he sees me. ‘Here she is. Young Fern.'

‘Freya, not Fern. Who's Fern?'

‘She's in the poem. Or the place is Fern. I get muddled up.'

Evie calls Gramps
muddle-head
sometimes, and he doesn't seem to mind. It's true, for one thing, and it doesn't matter because bees and gardens and crab pots don't mind a bit of a muddle. In any case, Evie's bright and quick enough for two, Gramps says. People who are a bit muddly sometimes are restful to be with, I think. You don't have to be on your guard or worry about what you say.

‘Coming for a picnic?' I ask him.

‘Delighted, Madame.' Gramps gives a mock bow. The bees start buzzing round his head and he puts his hat back on quick. He takes my arm as if he's escorting me somewhere exciting, not just back down the garden to the kitchen door. He used to mess around and play like that much more than he does these days.

 

The tide's low. It's perfect for swimming from the long stretch of sand we call the Bar, between St Ailla and the next tiny island called Gara. Gramps drinks coffee and reads the newspaper while Evie and I get undressed. I squeeze into my wetsuit.

‘I've grown! Can you help do me up?'

Evie has to tug the zip up my back and it still doesn't fasten at the top.

‘You need a new one!'

We don't mention the wetsuit still hanging in the shed, gathering dust. The wetsuit that might have helped save Joe, had he been wearing it. What would it feel like, to put it on? Like slipping into my brother's skin? Stepping into his shoes . . .

‘Hurry up!' Evie calls from the water. She's already in, floating on her back, toes up, arms sculling. I'm not half as brave as her. The first time, I have to inch in, little by little, getting used to the cold. After that it's fine.

We swim overarm, side by side, a long way out, then turn to look back at the beach. Gramps has the binoculars trained on us. We wave. I think of those words from another poem: ‘
not waving but drowning.
' Everything is conspiring to remind me of Joe. As if there's any chance of me ever forgetting! Only Joe didn't wave. Didn't look back once.

Evie and I float for a while, and then we practise diving for pebbles. For the first time, I'm so much better than her! I've been practising holding my breath in the bath for years.

She comes up spluttering. ‘OK. You win! You're almost a mermaid, Freya!'

We swim slowly back to the sand bar, breaststroke. Evie's out of breath, but I'm still full of energy. I love that feeling. I could swim for miles.

Gramps is waiting, holding out two towels. He folds me in the big blue one and holds on to me just that bit longer than usual, to let me understand how he feels, watching us go that far out. Evie's like me: she loves swimming. She loves to be in the water. Not Gramps, though. He likes to be
on
the water. In a boat, with a sail and a rudder and a painter and a map and compass.
Horses for courses
, he says. He finds it hard, the way we swim right out, because he knows about tides and currents and what happens when you get cold or cramp. Over the years, he's got used to Evie doing it.

He picks seaweed out of my hair while we sip coffee from the flask and eat the crab sandwiches. We walk the whole length of the sand bar to Gara, our feet sliding in the dry sand near the dunes at the top. We trek up the hill through bracken tall enough to hide in, as far as the heathery top near the standing stone. Gramps walks more slowly; I run ahead and lean against the rough stone to wait. Evie's holding Gramps' hand. She looks much younger than him. Funny how I've not noticed that before.

Evie flops down on the heather. She pulls Gramps down too. ‘Try it, Freya! Like a springy mattress.'

It is. I close my eyes in the sun. My head's full of the buzzing of honeybees, and the sweet smell of the heather flowers.

‘Are they your bees, Gramps?'

‘Yes,' he says. ‘Don't you recognise them?'

I open my eyes. He's grinning, teasing me.

‘Of course,' I say. ‘Those stripy vests they're wearing. I'd know them anywhere.'

When I sit up, Gramps and Evie are lying at an angle to each other. Evie rests her head on Gramps' broad chest. They're breathing deeply, rhythmically, as if they're asleep. I wander back up to the stone, and the cairn just a bit further along the peaty path. I can see right over the island from here to Broad Sound beyond, the deep channel of water between here and Main Island. A small sailing dinghy's tacking up the middle, leaving a faint trail on the surface of the sea. I watch it make its way up the Sound and out into the open sea till it's just a white dot on the horizon. Sea and sky are almost the exact same blue. A faint line marks where sky meets water. The longer I look, the more they merge until it's impossible to say which is which. It could be Joe, sailing out like that, into the blue, if things had been different. And suddenly, clear as the sound of the bees in the purple heather, I hear Joe's voice.

‘
It's all right now.
'

I spin round. No one's there. I look, and strain to listen. My heart's racing again. Wind blows through the low heather bushes. Further off, a gull squawks.

There's really no one there. I must have imagined it, conjured the voice up from thinking so much about him. Even so . . .

‘Ready to go back, Freya?' Evie calls from below. ‘Or you can stay a bit longer. Just keep an eye on the tide.'

I skid down the track to join them. ‘It's OK. I'll come now, with you.'

We push back down the hill through the bracken. The roots give off a sweet earthy scent where our feet bruise them.

That voice – Joe – has unnerved me. I have the peculiar feeling of being on some edge, in danger of slipping away altogether. I need to do something – say something – just to anchor me back to earth.

‘Isn't that old well somewhere near here?' I ask. ‘The Bronze Age one.'

‘It's much further along, nearer Beady Pool,' Evie says. ‘We can have a look for it if you like. It's quite difficult to find among the long grass.'

Gramps used to tell us stories about the islanders long ago throwing gifts into the well – coins, jewellery – and making wishes. They'd wish for a ship to be sent on to the rocks, so they'd get all the pickings from the shipwreck. ‘Gruesome lot,' Gramps would say. ‘But that's island life for you. Needs must.'

We haven't been here for a long time. We find it eventually, hidden by long grass and bracken near the cliff above Beady Pool. It smells peaty and damp. The air's cold, as if the sun never reaches it.

‘Careful,' Evie says. ‘It's deep, you know.'

It's too dark to see anything. I shuffle forward and grip on to the stone lip so I can look right down.

‘Please don't,' Evie says.

Gramps hands me a pebble from his pocket, to chuck in so we can hear how far down it goes before it hits water. We did it before, years ago, when Joe and I were little – made wishes of our own.

I lean over, let it drop. My head spins. I wait and wait.

‘It's dried up,' I say.

‘Or you just missed the splash,' Evie says. ‘Come on, then.'

She and Gramps start walking. I fish in my pocket for something else to throw in: a tiny yellow cowrie shell, a safety pin, a five-pence coin. I slip them in, and with each I make a wish.

Let Mum and Dad be OK.

Let me be happy again.

Let me see Joe, one more time.

The darkness swallows them.

I run to catch up. Gramps is talking to Evie about setting the crab pots in the morning. ‘You can come with me, Freya,' he says. ‘Unless you are otherwise engaged, that is.'

‘Of course she is,' Evie says. ‘She won't be wanting to go out in that old rowing boat, just to get a few smelly crabs with you. Will you, Freya?'

I don't answer. I know the real reason why Evie doesn't want me going out in the boat. But I'm not going to argue now. And we're already back at the house, and there's a scrap of paper sticking out of the letterbox, with a message for me.

Eleven

 

 

It's scribbled in pink felt tip.

 

Hi Freya! We are all going down to the field later. Football then fire/barbecue on the beach. Please come. xx Izzy (+ Matt, Danny, Maddie, Lisa, Will, Ben, etc, etc)

 

Evie reads it over my shoulder. ‘Sounds fun.'

‘S'pose.'

‘She's a lovely girl,' Evie says.

‘Who is?' Gramps tips sand out of his shoes in a fine shower on to the garden path.

‘Izzy. Isabelle. The girl helping Sally with the campsite this year.'

‘With hair like spun gold.' Gramps grins.

Evie sighs. ‘You don't miss a trick when it comes to pretty girls, do you? See that, Freya? Not so muddled now, is he?'

Upstairs, I study myself in the mirror. Hardly spun gold,
my
hair. Nor ebony or anything else you'd find in one of those stories on Evie's shelves. I think of Mum, holding that mirror on the landing, the day before I left, how thin and faded she looked. It comes over me in a sudden rush, this overwhelming need to see her and talk to her, to
make
her see me. I almost pick up the phone, but I don't. I've tried it before. She'll be busy. She won't have anything to say. She'll start worrying. There's no point.

In the bath, I rinse off the sand and salt still stuck to my skin. My limbs look pale and thin in the dim light of the downstairs bathroom. Wearing my wetsuit on the beach today means I still haven't got that first flush of sunburn. I lie back in the water. Last summer, I could easily float in this bath but now I'm too long: my toes touch the end. I hold my breath and dip my head right under. Bubbles come out of my ears. My hair spreads out. I start counting the seconds. One, two, three . . .

What shall I wear for the beach party? We'll be playing football first, so jeans. Izzy will be wearing some crazy hippy thing as usual. And Matt will be there . . .

I imagine describing him to Miranda, even though I'm not intending to tell her anything right now because she'll just go on about it. Tall. Slim. Blonde hair that sticks up at the front, longer at the back. The bluest eyes. Wide smile . . .