Breathing Underwater Page 4

  I’ve done the jump across before. It’s better not to look down. It’s hardly any distance across, but there’s a deep drop and the sea is always boiling and churning as it’s squeezed along the gap between the rocks. If you fell you’d be smashed up quite badly.

  ‘It’s a good place for mackerel,’ the boy says. ‘They come in really close, because the water’s so deep.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’ve been here loads of times.’

  He threads a silver sand eel on to a hook. Casts the line out. Stands with his back to me. I wait. It’s so like being with Joe I can hardly breathe. My hands shake when I try to open the box.

  ‘It’s my first holiday here,’ the boy says. ‘Every one else at the campsite seems to have been a million times. Are you camping?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nice fishing rod,’ he says after a long gap.

  I almost laugh, but I can see how shy he is, and he’s trying to be friendly, and Miranda’s a long way away and she’ll never know about this particular conversation, so I make a big effort to be friendly back.

  ‘It was my grandpa’s,’ I say. ‘I stay with him and my gran every summer. I’m Freya.’

  ‘Danny,’ he says. ‘You can borrow some bait, if you want.’

  For one horrible moment I think he’s about to hand me a heap of pink wriggling meal worms. But he shoves a bucket with his foot. ‘Help yourself.’

  And that’s how I come to hook my first ever sand eel, eyes wide open, holding my breath. Sorry, I say in my head to the sand eel as I skewer it. I catch my first ever mackerel by myself soon after. Me and Danny catch three each. After the first one, Danny takes over the actual killing bit, flipping the fish against the rock so it dies quickly, but I’m glad I’ve done one, at least. Joe would be proud of me. I can almost hear his voice, telling me. But he’s not here. There’s no sense of him at the fishing rock today, and I know there can’t be, not with Danny here too.

  Danny’s excitement is catching. He does a kind of dance there on the rock. He’d go on catching fish after fish, if he had his way.

  ‘That’s enough,’ I tell him. ‘We shouldn’t be greedy. Just get enough for supper.’

  We walk back together. Danny’s already planning a barbecue. He’s seen too many of those telly programmes – cooking wild food . . . living off the land . . . whatever. He talks about finding edible seaweed and all sorts. ‘We might find marsh samphire, if we look. It tastes a bit like asparagus.’

  He sees my face. ‘What is it? What’s the matter? Freya?’

  ‘Got to go.’ I manage to spit out the words. Then I start running.

  I leave him way behind, looking puzzled, those stupid dead fish dangling from his line. I don’t care what Danny thinks any more. All I can think about is getting away, being alone. Samphire. The name no one’s said for nearly a year.

  Eight

  Last summer

  August 14th

  Dave and Huw take the Spirit over to Main Island to pick up people from the ferry two or three times a week, to bring them back to the campsite on St Ailla. If the weather’s good enough, all of us kids go down to the jetty to meet the boat and see who’s arriving. We sit on the wall and watch the Spirit ploughing back across the Sound, and we help with loading the bags and gear on to the tractor-trailer. Sometimes, if Huw’s driving he’ll give us a lift back. Everyone loves the bumpy ride along the track to the field.

  So that’s what we’re doing now: waiting. Me, Joe, Will, Luke, Lisa, Maddie, Rosie. Rosie is the youngest (about six) then me (thirteen). Maddie, Rosie’s big sister, is the next oldest, then Joe, Will, Luke and Lisa are all sixteen. Huw’s more like nineteen, and Dave’s grown-up of course, like forty or even more.

  ‘Where’s Ben?’ Rosie asks.

  Maddie shrugs. ‘Off somewhere.’

  Ben lives on St Ailla all year round. He loves it when we all turn up in the summer: it means he gets to play football. He’s not very good at it because he never gets any practice. He’s about eleven or twelve. Small for his age. He goes to school by boat, on Main Island. How cool is that?

  ‘He said he was going to Main Island on the early boat with his dad,’ Lisa says. ‘That family with twin babies left this morning, too.’

  ‘The campsite’s full now, apparently,’ Will says. ‘Just one new family, arriving on the ferry.’

  ‘I hope there’s a girl for me to play with,’ Rosie says.

  ‘Me too. So you stop bothering us all the time,’ Maddie says.

  Rosie puckers up her mouth and slaps Maddie’s leg. Maddie picks up a pebble and pretends she’s going to hit Rosie, just so Rosie squawks, then chucks it at the can we’ve set up on a rock. She misses.

  I have a go. I miss too.

  Joe picks up a handful of pebbles. He chooses them carefully, testing their weight. He aims. The can bounces off the rock and clatters down the cliff a little way. ‘Yes!’ Joe jumps down from the wall and goes to set the can up again.

  ‘Best of three,’ Will says.

  ‘Boat’s coming,’ Lisa calls.

  We watch the people getting off. A few rambler types, for the bed and breakfast place, we guess. The family with camping gear is just a woman and two girls, one about seven, so Rosie’s happy, and the other older, more like Joe’s age. She’s got long straight dark hair, almond eyes. She’s utterly beautiful. A sort of collective sigh passes from Will to Luke to Joe and even to Lisa and Maddie.

  Huw helps the girl up the steps. He holds her arm longer than is strictly necessary. We all notice.

  When I look round at Joe, I see his mouth’s slightly open. ‘Catching flies, fish-face?’ I tease, and he shoves me so I fall off the wall.

  The new girl doesn’t smile. We watch her follow the woman and the little girl up the steep stone jetty. No one else moves or says anything. It’s like we’re all spellbound. As she goes past, she glances briefly at us. Rosie hops down and runs after the little girl. ‘Hello, my name is Rosie.’ We hear her chattering after them, like she always does with new people. The rest of us turn our heads to watch their progress along the path. The girl stops and looks back once. Joe smiles. Then Huw comes chugging past on the tractor, and we all scramble to get a lift with the luggage on the trailer. I see Joe check the labels on the bags.

  That’s the real moment Joe’s summer changes. The day Samphire arrives.

  Nine

  ‘I thought I’d go on the boat trip tonight,’ I say at teatime. Evie and I have grilled the mackerel and we’re eating it now, picking out the small bones.

  Evie shoots a look at Gramps, and then at me. ‘Well,’ she says slowly. ‘I’m not sure . . . your mum and dad might not think that’s a good idea . . .’

  ‘Please?’ I say. I know why they fret about me going on boats. Even so.

  ‘I suppose we could come too,’ Evie says.

  Gramps snorts. ‘Whatever for? I’ve seen enough seals to last a lifetime.’

  ‘It’s not just about the seals,’ Evie says. ‘It’ll be fun.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll be perfectly safe. Please. I want to go by myself. I’m fourteen, you know. Not a baby.’

  I can see her wavering, trying to decide.

  ‘All right. But be very careful. Hold on tight. And take my waterproofs,’ she says. ‘You’ll need them.’

  She’s right. Out of the shelter of the islands the sea’s still rough and churned up from the big storm. The waves seem huge, the boat suddenly tiny. But everyone’s just laughing as waves break and spray drenches the deck. People start singing. It is fun, once I stop thinking too much about how far out we are, how deep the water is beneath. And everyone’s there: Izzy and Matt and Danny. Maddie and Lisa from last year come up and say hello and no one mentions Joe or last summer, thank goodness, because it’s obviously not the right time, and somehow it all feels easier to handle today.

  ‘I’m freezing!’ Lisa crosses over to sit on the slatted bench behind the wheelhouse. Maddie joins her, huddled up in her quilt
ed jacket, and Danny plonks himself down in the space next to me.

  Matt and Izzy are leaning out at the front of the boat, Izzy laughing as usual. Dave yells at them from the wheelhouse and Matt pulls her back. He kisses her. She closes her eyes. I can’t look away. There’s something magnetic, magical even, about them. What does it feel like, being kissed like that?

  ‘There! See? Loads of seals!’ a voice calls out, and everyone surges to one side. The boat rocks.

  ‘Sit down! Keep her balanced,’ Dave growls. ‘You’ll all get a look. Stop panicking.’

  ‘They look almost human,’ Danny says. ‘Those eyes.’

  ‘Whiskery humans,’ I say.

  Two come right close up, heads high above the waves. They’re watching us watching them.

  ‘These are grey Atlantic seals. Another month or so and they’ll start giving birth . . .’ Dave begins the usual patter. I’ve heard it loads of times, but I still love looking at the seals. I can imagine each seal is a person, treading water. I watch one dive, begin counting. I start to feel dizzy: I can’t help holding my own breath, waiting for the seal to come back up. My lungs push against my ribs till they hurt.

  ‘How do they stay under so long?’ Danny says.

  ‘Mammalian diving reflex,’ I say. ‘They store oxygen in their blood and muscles, instead of in the lungs like we do.’

  Matt and Izzy listen too.

  ‘But people have the same reflex, up to a point,’ I tell Danny. ‘Your body goes into oxygen-saving mode when your face goes under. Heart rate slows down and everything. You can practise holding your breath.’

  Not for ten minutes, though. Not for half an hour, like seals. Not for long enough, if you’re trapped underwater.

  ‘She’s clever, that Freya,’ Izzy says to Matt. He kisses her again and this time I’m looking away, suddenly sick and cold to the bone.

  ‘You’re shivering,’ Danny says.

  A small girl squeezes in next to him. He puts his arm round her. His little sister. She’s the little girl I saw before on the beach, playing with Rosie.

  It begins to rain.

  ‘Back to the pub?’ Dave asks and a cheer goes up from the boat. He revs the engine and the boat begins to turn. Only Izzy and Matt stay at the front, oblivious to the rain and the spray, hands clasped together, yelling with each roll and tip of the boat as it rides the waves back to our island. They look like people in a film. Izzy’s hair is plastered to her head, sodden, and yet she’s still beautiful, radiant. Matt sees it, and so does everyone else.

  ‘Camping in the rain again,’ someone says. ‘Oh joy.’

  ‘It’ll blow out by morning,’ Dave says. ‘Tomorrow will be fine.’

  I don’t go to the pub with everyone. I come straight home, peel off the waterproofs – which aren’t – and the layers of wet clothes underneath and get warm in the bath. Rain’s still battering the window when I’m lying in bed. I think about the tents in the field, the sound of rain drumming on nylon, the damp seeping up from the grass. I imagine Izzy and Matt curled round each other in their nest of duvet and blankets. I’m almost asleep, half dreaming.

  Am I asleep? In my muddled dream-thoughts, Joe is outside in the wind and the rain. Not a spirit Joe, but a real flesh and blood Joe, cold and wet and alone. And it’s my fault. Why don’t I do something? I need to find someone to help. I need to call him back. I’m caught in a nightmare maze and every turning takes me further away from where I want to be. I’m hotter and hotter and something tight is winding round my chest, smothering me.

  I wake with a start, my heart thrumming under my ribs. I’m bound tight by the twisted sheet. Outside, the wind is shrieking, pulling at the window latch, trying to get in. I untangle the sheet and sit up. It’s just after midnight. I’m so thirsty. I make my way downstairs. The light’s still on.

  Evie’s reading on the sofa. She looks up. ‘Freya! You look hot! What’s up?’

  I ease myself next to her so she can feel my forehead. I’m shivering now, my feet freezing. She tucks me under the garden rug, next to her.

  ‘I was dreaming,’ I say. ‘And the wind woke me.’

  ‘It makes such a strange noise, sometimes,’ Evie says. ‘Like it’s moaning. It sounds almost human, doesn’t it? I was wide awake too. So I came back downstairs to read. I don’t like to disturb your gramps. He’s terrible if he doesn’t get enough sleep.’

  Evie strokes my hair back from my face. ‘Perhaps you’ve got a temperature. You caught a chill, maybe, from the boat. I’ll get you some water. You stay there.’

  She gets me a drink, and makes tea for herself, and I listen to the sounds from the kitchen of the tap running, and the kettle going on, and her feet padding round on the tiles, the chink of the cup on the table. I start to feel safe again. It’s like being very little, when someone else is looking after you and you don’t have to think or do anything for yourself. It hasn’t been like that for me for a long time.

  When Evie comes back she tucks the blanket round me again. She sort of pats me, and we sit together in the circle of light from the lamp on the side table, and we don’t say anything. Evie finishes her tea.

  ‘You’re missing Joe,’ she says at last. ‘Of course you are.’

  I look at her. She’s lost in her own thoughts. There are tears on her cheeks. It’s a comfort, sitting together like that, without having to say anything.

  I don’t even remember going back up to bed, but I must have, because that’s where I am, next thing, and it’s the morning: bright sunlight is flooding through the window and my phone says 11.06.

  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.