The Art of Not Breathing (16 page)

“It’s like being underwater.”

For some reason they think this is hilarious.

Rex jabs a finger at the map, and when I look closer, it seems to be some sort of intricate plan of the sea floor. He explains there’s a wreck just off Lossiemouth. It’s at forty-three meters.

“We’re going in a month or two. You wanna come?” Rex asks. “Danny says you might be our new spotter now that . . .” He trails off.

“She can dive with us,” Danny says. “Tay’s been teaching her, a bit. But now I’m going to show her how it’s really done.”

The boat boys go quiet.

I suck in my breath, the way Tay taught me, first into my belly, then into my lungs. I sit in lotus position like this for a minute, and when a minute is up I do a little dance, pretending that my arms are dolphins, twisting, turning, diving. Even as the boat boys, Danny included, roll around in hysterics, I keep my breath inside me until my body is screaming for me to release. It feels good when I breathe out.

“Fuck me,” Rex says, sighing.

“No, thanks,” I reply, and suddenly I am a new confident me. Joey is killing himself beside me. I remember Tay’s first lesson. Step one: be confident. Inside, I smile.

“So what’s this place called now? Doesn’t the dive school have a name?”

“Actually, that’s your first job, Elsie,” Danny says. “We need to paint the name on the front.
Black Isle Divers.
”

“Really? That’s not very exciting.”

“It’s fairly self-explanatory,” Danny says. “We want people to know what we do.”

“I get that, but it seems a bit bland. And people might think that you can only come here to dive, when really you can come here just to hang out, watch the boats, look across at the mainland, eat.”

The three boys ponder this for a moment, and then Rex says, “She’s right. It’s a shite name.”

“We can’t change it: the business is already set up. The bank, the email address, everything,” Danny says dismissively.

“So just change the name of the actual clubhouse, then,” Joey says. “How about No Limits Café?”

“The Dolphin,” Rex says.

I hear Eddie calling out for the “fins.”

“How about the Black Fin?” I suggest, and immediately regret it, but it’s too late.

Mick appears behind the bar. “Perfect,” he says. “Any more ideas, Elsie?”

Perhaps Eddie won’t mind that he inspired the name of this place. I jump up and run to the back corner. “Yes. You should keep all these cushions but move them here and move the TV screen here so that people can watch films. And Lila Sinclair should come for the opening.”

Mick whistles. “I think she might be in the Bahamas, but I’ll see what I can do.”

I feel excited for the first time since Tay and I were planning our night dive. Eventually I ask Joey if Tay has gone back to Dornie. I feel like Tay would trust Joey the most. Joey looks at Rex, and Rex shrugs. No one seems to know. Tay does a good vanishing act.

“I reckon he’ll be back,” Joey says.

Whatever the reason for Tay’s disappearance, the best chance I have of seeing him again is to hang around with the boat boys. He’s got to come back at some point. And in the meantime I learn to dive. I learn to dive deep.

We go back to looking at the sea chart.

“It’s here,” Joey says, taking my finger and placing it on a patch of darker blue. Eighteen meters is the deepest I’ve been. I have a long way to go to get to forty-three.

2

AFTER A WEEK OF ME PAINTING AND PUTTING FURNITURE TOGETHER,
in between taking pointless exams, Danny finally allows me to join him and the other boat boys on a dive. I get through my maths exam, just about, although I can’t answer most of the questions in the second half of the paper, and arrive at the harbor midafternoon. Joey and Rex are feeding the seagulls on the harbor wall. They’re wearing new matching wetsuits that have red zippers on the back. Rex holds a piece of bread out to Joey, then whips it away and sticks it in his mouth. Joey elbows him, and then goes back to clucking at the gulls.

“We’re going to Sandwich Cove,” Danny explains, appearing from nowhere. “There’s an underwater cave there. Up for it?”

“Yeah, of course,” I say, even though I’m afraid of caves.

Danny passes me a yellow waterproof duffel.

“It’s a loan, just for today.”

Inside, there’s a diving watch and a diving suit. The wetsuit is tight, but it slides on much easier than Dillon’s smelly old one. The fabric feels smooth against my skin. I can’t stop beaming and just manage to stop myself from throwing my arms around Danny’s neck.

The
Half Way
is one of the smallest boats in the harbor. It just about holds the four of us. It chugs along slowly, giving me time to compose myself, and by the time we arrive in the small bay, a little way up the coast from where Tay and I used to dive, I’m still nervous but more excited. We moor up to some craggy rocks that are sheltered from the breaking waves and stay in the boat to put our gear on. I accidentally elbow Rex several times as I pull on my wetsuit, and he shouts loudly that I can’t keep my hands off him. Joey tells me to ignore him. Danny points to where the cave is—to get to it, we have to swim back out to the sea and around to the next bay.

The water is freezing, but I have booties on and the swim warms me up.

When we get to the next bay, Danny stops swimming. “Wait,” he says, holding me back in the water. He stares at the cliff face as though there might be a monster lurking just beneath the surface. Loch Ness Monster perhaps. I giggle nervously.

“We can’t do this today,” Danny says. “There’s a current. I can feel it.”

I look around. The bay is as flat as a millpond. And the water around my legs is still and cold.

“Don’t be a twat, Danny boy. Come on, I’ll lead the way,” Rex says, swimming on.

“Stay close to me, Elsie,” Danny says. Then he speeds off to catch up with Rex, and I can hardly breathe by the time I reach them. Danny is in charge again now. I can’t help wonder if he’s a little scared of caves too, though. I feel a surge of warmth for him, but quickly shake it away.

“The entrance of the cave is five meters below the surface. When we get there, follow the light and keep kicking hard until you get to the far wall and then frog kick straight to the surface,” Danny says. “Watch out for bits of rock that jut out—keep one hand near the wall, and the other above you.”

We dive down, and Danny points to the rocky coral-covered archway that leads to the cave. I want him to go first, but he motions for me to go ahead. It’s dark inside the arch. I swim as fast as I can, my fins hitting the coral with every kick, but finally I see the opening, and the dark water turns to a hazy green. When I get to the far side, I look up and see the surface a few meters above. I start frog kicking like crazy, but the fins are getting in my way. We’ve been under for less than a minute, but I already want to breathe. I’m just thinking about removing the fins when Danny appears next to me and he takes us up. It seems to take forever—the clear water is deceptive, and the surface is much farther away than I first thought.

Finally, we break through and Danny asks if I’m okay.

“Yes, except the fins don’t fit properly.”

“They do fit. You just need to work on your fin kicks,” he says.

“How do I improve my fin kicks?” I ask.

“Your kicks aren’t very efficient.”

“Yes, but how do I make them better?”

He demonstrates with his hand, pushing his fingers back and forth in invisible water. I have no idea what he means. Tay would be able to tell me how to improve. He would show me, then draw a diagram and then let me practice as many times as I wanted.

I miss him.

Danny motions to some steps carved out of the rock. I pull off my fins in the water and heave myself up. The steps lead up to a narrow ledge where there’s just enough room to sit with my legs dangling over the side. Once I’ve gotten over the journey in, the sight takes my breath away. Light shines down from two cracks in the ceiling and fills the cave with golden rays. Hundreds of stalactites hang down, the water on them glistening. Danny sits next to me.

Below us, the shadows of Rex and Joey shimmy up to the surface.

“The water’s amazing,” Rex says when he comes up. “You can see right to the bottom. Did you look?”

I didn’t look down—I was too focused on getting up to the surface—but he’s right: the water is the clearest I’ve ever seen, with no sand and grit that normally makes it murky.

“Welcome to the King’s Grotto,” Rex says, as though he owns it. “Isn’t this the coolest place you’ve ever been to?”

“It’s amazing,” I say, still taking it all in. The air in here tastes stale, but being in an underwater cave is mind-blowing. If I’d known about this place before, I would have chosen it for my hiding place.

“See the throne?” Rex points to a little enclave opposite the ledge where I’m sitting that actually looks like a seat. “We always bring a rock or pebble from outside for good luck. We put them up there.”

Rex hauls himself out of the water and scrambles up the rockface to the throne. I notice that the ledge he’s on runs all the way around the cave and back to where I’m sitting. He places his rock in the throne, then somersaults off the ledge back into the water. We watch him sink to the bottom and then zoom back up like a torpedo.

Joey climbs the steps and passes me his stone to add to the collection. It’s a small, heavy one. A wave of vertigo passes over me as I stand and I try not to look down.

Danny grabs my hand. “Don’t, it’s dangerous,” he says. But I shrug him off. Slowly I inch my way around to the throne, keeping one hand against the wall until the ledge widens. Finally I reach the throne and, inside, colored stones sparkle under the rays—red, green, blue. I catch a glimpse of something yellowy-gold among the darker stones toward the back. It’s like stumbling on someone’s treasure. I run my hands over the stones, feeling all the different textures—smooth ones, sharp ones, rough ones. As I reach farther in, my finger gets caught on something. It’s too dark over here to see what it is—a bit of fishing net, perhaps, or some other sea junk. I yank my hand out of the throne and turn around to admire the view. The boat boys are all on the ledge opposite me. Danny’s face is white, like he might keel over. I’m about to ask if he’s okay when Rex yells for me to jump into the pool. I’m not falling for that again. I inch my way back along the ledge, and by the time I reach them, Danny looks normal again but a little agitated.

After the thrill of the ledge, I start to shiver, and Danny says we can’t stay long because the air is too thin.

On the way back, I take more notice of my surroundings and see that the archway is covered in mollusks and blue soft coral that look like hands waving.

“Dead man’s fingers,” Danny explains when we’re back on the boat, and I shudder.

“I’m impressed, Elsie,” Rex says. “You’re quite the diver. You should try jumping off the ledge next time, though. This wuss won’t do it.” He nods to Danny, who rolls his eyes.

“Because it’s fucking dangerous,” he says.

Back at the Black Fin, while we’re drying off by the fire, Danny says I can keep the wetsuit and the watch.

“It’s a peace offering. You can keep it here, as long as you rinse it after each dive.”

It’s the first new piece of clothing I’ve had for a year. “Thank you.”

He sits next to me as I towel dry my hair.

“I’m sorry if I seem overprotective,” he says. “I can’t help it, knowing about what happened to your brother.”

I stop drying my hair and look at the floor.

“How does your family cope?” he asks. “It must be so hard living here, reminders everywhere, water everywhere.”

I wonder why he can’t see that I don’t want to talk about Eddie with him.

“We manage,” I say. “Why are you so interested?”

He folds his arms. “I don’t know. Sorry. I just remember it. How sad everyone was at the time—it was all anyone talked about for months, and it’s stayed with me, I guess. And now I see you every day, I can’t help thinking about it.”