The Art of Not Breathing (18 page)

“Elsie and I are making plans to go rockpooling. Aren’t we, Elsie?”

The appalled look on Lara’s face makes me smile, and suddenly rockpooling is exactly what I want to do. If anything because it might cool me down.

“Yes, we were,” I say, mimicking her hair flick, which doesn’t really work because my hair is too curly and too heavy. “Why don’t you come?”

Now Frankie’s face falls, but he can’t have everything his own way. Either Lara comes with us or I don’t go at all. I don’t want Frankie getting the wrong idea. Lara isn’t too bad, really, just a bit skinny. And Frankie, well, I owe him, I guess. We make plans for the next day because I want to get it over with, and then, finally, school is out.

7

I WAKE UP FEELING FREE. NO SCHOOL. NO AILSA. THIS IS THE
start of two months of nothing but diving. Before I get out of bed, I hold my breath for three minutes and ten seconds. Soon, very soon, I will make it to four minutes. I’m nearly ready for the drop-off. I shuffle along the corridor to Dillon’s bedroom and stick my head around his door. His room smells of vomit and aerosol. Dillon stirs. His feet stick out the end of his bed, twitching.

“Dil, are you awake?”

He groans, and I wander over to the window where Eddie’s bed used to be. The cemetery is in full view, and some of the shiny headstones glint in the sun, winking at me as though they want me to go down. I turn away.

“Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead.”

“Go away,” Dillon growls. “I’m asleep.” He kicks the duvet into the air and moves his feet back inside the bed.

“But it’s the holidays.”

“Exactly,” he mumbles.

“I’m going rockpooling later with Lara and Frankie. Do you want to come?”

Dillon lifts his head above the duvet and stares at me. He looks even worse than he did yesterday, with cracked lips and gray skin. I feel myself recoil slightly. He could be an extra in a zombie movie.

“It’ll be fun,” I say. “We’re going to look for crabs.”

“That sounds exciting. Why are you going with
her?
”

Because she asked; so I can pretend to be normal; because it’s a decoy from what I’m really getting up to this holiday.

“Because there’s nothing else to do, and for some reason your girlfriend wants to be my friend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Dillon stretches and sits up in his bed. His greasy hair is stuck to his forehead.

“Well, she seems to think she is. I mean, she says she doesn’t care about you anymore, but I don’t believe her.”

He laughs lazily, as though he’s too tired to do it properly. “That girl’s got issues.”

“Well, if you’re breaking up with her, then I’m not doing your dirty work for you.”

“I’m not asking you to,” he replies. “Right—get out of my room so I can get dressed.”

He flings a dirty sock in my direction.

As I leave, something green lodged behind the wardrobe catches my eye. An old cuddly toy of mine—Jasper the frog. I pull him loose and shake him in the hallway, and the dust hovers for a moment in the landing before tumbling down the staircase.

In the kitchen after breakfast, I show Mum the finished sailboat. It’s so hot today that the heat has even made its way inside our house, warming all the surfaces. I hold the boat in the palm of my hand while she inspects it, running her fingers along the smooth wood. She blows a piece of hair off her face and wipes sweat from her forehead.

“You really made this?” The awe in her voice makes me feel proud.

The sails curve out as though the wind is pushing against them, and a tiny model of me is gazing out over the steering wheel. I show her how the sails have string so they can be cast up and down, and she continues to coo over it.

“It’s even waterproof,” I tell her.

“You should test it out, Elsie. See if it floats!”

Her cheeks are flushed. She leans across the sink to open the windows and tries to waft air inside.

“I have an idea,” I say, placing the boat on the sideboard. “The wading pool.”

She sucks in a breath and I think she’s going to cry, but then she smiles.

“That’s a great idea,” she says softly. The smile stays on her face, but I notice the tiny tremble in her jaw.

The three of us drag the wading pool into the garden. It hasn’t been used for years, and Dillon is convinced it’s got a hole in it. He gets his bicycle repair kit and puts his head to the rubber, listening for air. Mum unravels the hose and starts filling the pool as Dillon and I take turns blowing air into the valves. It takes ages because Dillon keeps stopping to check for punctures. At least that’s what he says. I keep a close eye on him, hoping that I don’t have to call an ambulance at any point. I don’t know how much longer I can keep his illness a secret.

Eventually, the pool is full of water and not leaking. Somehow it already has grass and dead leaves floating in it. The bottom is creased from its years of scrunched-up storage, but it still looks inviting in this heat.

Mum disappears upstairs and comes back wearing her swimming suit with a pair of white denim shorts. Her skinny legs look silky, like she’s just moisturized them.

“Come on, Els, in you get.”

I roll my trousers up above my knees and climb over the side, then place the boat down carefully and wait for it to settle.

“It works!” she squeals.

Even Dillon is impressed. He suggests that I put a motor on it and see how fast it can go, but I tell him it wouldn’t be a sailboat then.

“It’s tremendous,” Mum says. She kisses me on the cheek, and I see Dillon wrinkling his nose at us, but I’m beaming. I don’t even mind that she’s wearing my lipstick. We watch the boat whirl around the pool for a while, its sails billowing gently in the hot breeze, and then I take it inside to dry it off and keep it safe.

When I get back outside, Mum is lying in the pool, still wearing her shorts. She stretches her arm out and motions for me to join her. Dillon trips me up with his foot, and I fall in face first, just missing her legs. I turn to her, afraid that I’ve hurt her, but she’s laughing.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She lifts her head to the sun. “We should do this more often.”

“Maybe we could go to Fairy Glen one day this week,” I say. “And swim in the waterfall.”

Mum nods and strokes my hair. “We do all right, don’t we?”

Dillon lies down in the shade under the apple tree, pretending to be asleep. When Lara rings the doorbell, he jumps up.

“I’m not here,” he says, running for the stairs, wheezing.

8

FORTROSE IS BUSY NOW THAT IT’S HOLIDAY SEASON.
Most visitors stay near Chanonry Point to see the dolphins or play golf, so we head to Rosemarkie beach instead. We keep walking until we find an empty cove that has enough rock pools for the crabs to hide in.

Frankie runs ahead and shouts back to us when he finds a nest of crabs. Lara and I climb over the rocks slowly behind him, Lara afraid of ruining her white espadrilles, and me afraid that if I twist my ankle, I won’t be able to dive.

“Was Dillon hiding from me?” Lara asks as we stand high up on the rocks, looking down at the water as it splashes into the rock pools.

“No,” I say, a bit too quickly.

“I thought I saw him running up the stairs as I came to the door.”

“He was running to the bathroom. Hangover,” I lie. “He went to town last night to celebrate finishing school.” Dillon should be pleased that I’m so good at lying.

Lara scrapes the rock with her foot and it breaks away, covering her shoes in red dust.

She tries to rub the dust from her shoe with her finger, but it smudges and stains. I look around for Frankie so we can talk about something else. Even crabs and shrimps would be better than discussing Dillon.

“Maybe we should go into Inverness on Friday,” Lara suggests.

“Dillon would hate that.”

“No, I meant just you and me.”

“Got no way of getting there,” I say, coming up with a flaw in the plan. I can’t think of anything worse than a crowded bar full of drunk kids from our school.

“Bus,” Lara suggests.

“How would we get home?”

“Um, taxi?”

“Haven’t got any money.” It’s a good excuse, and it’s true.

“I could borrow some money from my mum,” she says, twiddling her earring stud. “I can’t wait to drive. Are you going to have lessons next year?”

“What for? I can walk everywhere.”

“You’re so funny. I don’t mean drive around here. I mean drive into town. Go places.”

“I don’t want to go places,” I tell her. I do want to go places, though, but not anywhere that you can take a car.

“Please, just come into town with me. Everyone goes. If you’re worried about Ailsa, she won’t be there. She’s gone up north.”

I cringe when she mentions Ailsa. I wonder if they’ve fallen out and that’s why she wants to hang out with me. Maybe Ailsa has been nasty to her, too. I wonder where Tay is. I imagine him swimming with dolphins. Then I imagine him kissing another girl.

I nod toward Frankie. “Is he coming with us?”

Lara scrunches her nose up. “No offense, but I’d rather it was just us. He really smells.”

Frankie waves frantically at us. He’s holding a large crab with several legs missing. I wave back, but he shakes his head and beckons us down.

“We can see from here,” I yell.

Frankie holds a finger to his lips and shushes us, then points to behind the rocks. He looks as though he’s about to pee himself.

I scramble down the rock, and Lara carefully follows, reaching for my arm for balance.

“Otters,” Frankie whispers loudly when we get to the bottom.

My stomach flutters. I have never seen them this far up the coast. I half expect Frankie to have mistaken seals for otters, but when I peer around the rock, there they are. Three of them. Two bigger ones nuzzling a smaller one. The baby’s fur is slick and looks almost black. Its face is tiny and round, and its whiskers are nearly as long as its body. I wish I had a camera so I could show Dillon later. We perch on the boulders and watch as the waves gently wash over them.

“Are they dangerous?” Lara whispers as she moves behind me.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Frankie says. “The baby one is just like a puppy.”

I feel Lara tense beside me and I pat her on the leg. I tell her that they’re more scared of us than she is of them, but I don’t think she believes me. The baby looks in our direction with big pebble-black eyes.

After a few minutes, Frankie dips his bucket into the rock pool. I hear the clatter of something wriggling around inside it.

“Just a small one,” he says, sniffing.

“You just stole their dinner,” I say.

He looks into the bucket and back to the otters. “They’re not eating, they’re resting.”

I explain to Lara how the otters smash crabs against the rocks to break their shells. “They’re really clever. Like humans.”

The two large otters are half in and half out of the water, with their front paws close to the baby’s head, protecting it. Its long whiskers look golden in the sunshine.

“They can’t swim, the babies,” I continue. “Their mothers have to hold them underwater so they can learn how to dive.”

Lara gasps. “Isn’t that a bit cruel?”

Frankie looks at Lara and wrinkles his nose. “It saves their lives. I don’t think this one wants to go in, though.” The baby struggles to keep its paws from slipping into the water.

“Still seems cruel,” Lara repeats, and Frankie snaps at her.

“Go home, then, if you don’t like it.”

Lara looks at me for backup, but I say that we should be quiet or we’ll scare the otters away. She lowers her head and tries to detach a limpet from the rock.

We keep watching, until a group of children come running up the beach behind us and scare them away. The two bigger otters nudge the baby one until it plops into the water, and then they swim away, the water streaming off their heads. The kids come splashing through the rock pools with their buckets and nets, and Frankie is eager to show them how it’s done. I watch one of the boys, the smallest one. He is so excited, he doesn’t know which way to run first. His older sister chases after him. “Careful, Dougie.” She grabs him by the hand. “Don’t fall.”

I watch the boy, taking in his dark hair and the way his mouth hangs open, the way he hesitates before jumping across a rock pool. His sister gets annoyed when he soaks his trousers. I want to tell her not to be angry with him. To tell her that one day she might not even have the chance to be angry with him.

“Hey, why don’t we go back and get ice cream?” I say, and we retreat.

“So, how about this night out?” Lara asks again.

“Maybe,” I say. “I’ll think about it.”

When we get to the end of the beach, Frankie releases the crabs back into the water. Some of them swim away, legs spinning round and round, and some of them are definitely no longer alive.

9

WHEN I GET TO THE HARBOR THE FOLLOWING DAY,
I immediately sense something is wrong. Even though it’s boiling, Danny stands on the jetty with his arms folded tight across his white T-shirt as if he is freezing. Joey and Rex are climbing aboard the
Half Way,
swaying, waving their arms about. The tide is low, and the boats nearer to this end of the harbor are already grounded in mud. I’m only a few minutes late. I overslept but still wanted to make time for breathing practice. Three minutes and twenty seconds.