Breathing Underwater (11 page)

 

I've been dreaming again. I wake with a start, all hot and muddled, because I can hear Evie talking on the phone, and I know from the tone in her voice that she's worried.
Gramps
, I think instantly.
Something's happened
. I lie in bed for a while longer, trying to work out from her voice just how bad it is. Then I hear Gramps calling out for her, and I can breathe again.

‘The doctor's coming over,' Evie says when I go into the kitchen.

‘Is he worse?'

‘Same. Breathless. Muddled.'

‘What can I do?'

‘Nothing, love. You mustn't worry. I'm sure he'll be fine.'

I'm not convinced. I take a glass of juice out into the garden. The sun hasn't reached it yet; the shadows are long, and the grass is spangled with dew. It will be hot later. There's no wind. I prop open the greenhouse door like Gramps would normally do, and water the tomatoes and peppers in there. I love the smell of the leaves when you brush against them.

Gramps is propped up against the pillows when I go in to see him.

‘Fern!' he smiles.

‘Freya,' I say. ‘I watered the tomatoes for you.'

‘Good lass. You can get me the crab pots later. They need checking today.'

Evie bustles in with a tray. ‘No she can't,' she says. ‘Whatever are you thinking of? We can't have Freya going out on her own in the boat like that!'

‘I could ask someone else to help,' I say.

‘Dave would do it, if he has a spare moment, when he's done the morning ferry. Would you go down and ask him later? And perhaps you could get some shopping, if I give you a list? I need to stay here with Gramps.'

‘All this fuss,' Gramps says. He sinks back a bit, and his face looks too red against the white pillow. ‘Tires me out.'

Evie shoos me back out of the bedroom. ‘He needs to rest,' she whispers on the landing. Her hand is cold on my arm.

I'm thinking about yesterday, out on the boat. Why didn't I go back home with him? I could've carried all the stuff. It feels like it's my fault he's got this ill. What if something happens to him now? Joe first, then Gramps . . .

 

As I come over the ridge of the island I see the
Spirit
anchored out in the bay. The sea's still as a millpond, deep blue. I find Dave stacking boxes at the end of the jetty. A tractor-trailer is parked halfway down. The supplies boat must be due. I sort of hover, not wanting to interrupt, waiting for him to notice me. Which he eventually does.

‘Freya,' he says, like a statement of fact. He keeps on stacking.

‘Gramps sent me, he's not very well and he needs some help with the crab pots,' I say in a rush.

‘What's up with him?'

‘I don't know. The doctor's coming over.'

He stops, straightens up and frowns. ‘Is this her?' We both hear the chug-chugging of a small boat engine coming round the headland, but it's not the doctor's boat. My face goes hot as I see who it is.

Matt steers his boat alongside the jetty and throws the rope for Dave to catch.

‘Morning!' Matt says. ‘Everything all right?'

‘Freya here needs a hand to get some crab pots,' Dave says. ‘Her grandfather's took ill. Can you do it, Matt? I've got the supplies boat arriving any minute.'

‘Sure.'

Before I can say anything, Matt's got back in the boat and is making a space for me. There's nothing else I can do, is there? I haven't got a life jacket: Evie would go mental if she knew. But I get in anyway. Everything just falls into place and I go along with it.

No need to worry. There's not a breath of wind. The sea's like glass. But I guess everyone thinks like that, and that's when things go wrong. You never think it will happen to you.

‘You'll have to show me where,' Matt says. He starts up the engine. It makes too much noise for us to be able to talk much, which is a relief. I just point which way to go. He knows about the rocks. I feel perfectly safe. I start to enjoy it: the blueness all around, the sun beginning to warm my back. Matt and me. Alone! I imagine telling Miranda.

As we come round the rocks towards the first buoy the light on the water is dazzling. I screw up my eyes. My face is wet with spray. Matt's boat is much faster than Gramps' old wooden thing. ‘Here!' I say, and he cuts the engine. Silence folds back round us. The boat bobs on the waves. We work together, pulling up each pot to check for crabs. Most of them are too small, or the wrong kind and we throw them back. A crowd of squawking gulls starts following the boat as we move round the buoys. My hands begin to hurt from the cold.

‘What shall we do with the empty ones? Leave them? Or bring them back?'

‘I don't know. He didn't say.'

‘We'll bring them all back,' Matt decides. ‘Then he won't have to worry about them.'

In the end there's only a handful of edible crabs. It hardly seems worth the effort. But I'm not complaining really. I've spent all this time with Matt, just him and me, and it's easier talking when you're working together, somehow. He tells me about his dad's work on the Newlyn fishing trawlers. He talks about learning to scuba dive.

‘I like snorkelling,' I say. ‘That's all I've done, really. And a bit of free diving.'

‘You should try it with oxygen,' Matt says. ‘You'd love it.'

He pushes his fair hair back from his face. His eyes are shiny blue. I'm suddenly tongue-tied and embarrassed. Can't think of what else to say. If Izzy was here, she'd be chattering away, noticing things, making him laugh. I can't do that.

‘OK, then, Freya? We'll head back, yes?'

He starts up the outboard. The gulls wheel off again.

I'm thinking of the way my name sounds when he says it.
Freya.
I look at his hand on the outboard, and the other on the edge of the boat. We don't speak. I want the journey to go on and on, not straight back to the jetty, but round the island, just me and Matt, and then we'll land somewhere, and swim, and maybe he'll teach me how to dive, and then we'll lie out in the sun . . . I hardly know what I want, and I know it's all wrong, me thinking like this, because he's Izzy's boyfriend. He's too old for me, and anyway it's all totally hopeless and silly. He probably thinks I'm just this little kid. He's only helping me because Dave asked him to, and because he's kind.

For the first time, I can just begin to imagine what it might have been like for Joe: how he might have been feeling about Sam, last summer . . .

We're back at the jetty. Matt's looking at me, waiting for an answer to a question I didn't hear.

‘Sorry. What?'

‘I'll bring the crab pots back to your place later, on the tractor, if you like? Save you carrying all this.'

‘Yes. Thanks.'

He gives me a hand up from the boat. When he smiles down at me from the jetty, as I climb up the steps, my heart turns over.

‘Thanks, Matt.'

‘No problem.'

I force myself to keep walking without looking back.

Matt
. I said his name, out loud.

He'll be coming round to the house later.

Stop it
, I tell myself.
He belongs to Izzy. It isn't right.

But I know Izzy can look after herself. She'd just laugh, if she knew. She wouldn't be worried. They're an item, a proper couple, Matt and her. And anyway, how could I ever be in competition with Izzy? That's
really
stupid.

 

I almost forget to stop by at the shop, but just when I'm going past I hear voices from inside and it reminds me I promised Evie to get stuff for her.

It's Izzy's voice.

I go in; for a second it's too dark to see anything. My eyes adjust to the gloom: there's Izzy, leaning up at the counter, talking to the person at the till. Ben's dad runs the shop and post office. But it isn't him, or Ben, that Izzy's talking to.

‘Freya!' Izzy beams at me. ‘I guess you two know each other already? Huw?'

My heart stops.

Huw barely glances at me. He only has eyes for Izzy.

I hate the way he's looking at her. The way she's leaning towards him. I want to shout, or run away, or hit someone . . .

‘I heard your grandpa's ill,' Izzy says to me. ‘We saw the doctor's boat earlier this morning.'

‘Should be getting back, to see how he is,' I mumble. I snatch up a wire basket and start putting in the things I remember from Evie's list. When I search for it in my jeans pocket my fingers close round the necklace Izzy made yesterday, on the beach. It didn't work, did it?

Except that I'm not sad. Right now, I'm furious.

Huw's still chatting to Izzy. Over the shelves of cereals and tins I watch his face. His fair hair flops over into his eyes and he smoothes it back. He's good-looking, but he knows it. Arrogant. It's all his fault. If he hadn't been there, Sam and Joe might still have been together, and none of the rest would have happened . . .

And here he is all over again. Messing with Izzy now.

Does he sense me staring? He falters and is silent, mid-conversation. Is he remembering me, and last summer, and Joe? Feeling guilty?

Tea, filter coffee, orange juice, biscuits, eggs. I find the list, in the other pocket. Evie's written,
Treats?
What would Gramps like? Not beer or cake, if he's ill. I choose three ripe peaches and a bunch of red grapes.

I make myself go up to the counter. I put the basket on the side.

Huw starts taking the things out, weighs the fruit, prices it all up. ‘Nine pounds and fifty-nine pence,' he says. He puts the shopping into a plastic carrier bag.

I keep my eyes down. I hand him a ten-pound note. He presses the change back in my hand.

‘So, how are you, Freya?' he says.

His voice is different to what I expected: quite low and gentle.

He remembers everything.
I know he does, in that instant.

‘Got to get back,' I blurt out.

I know they'll both be watching me, will talk about me when I'm gone. I'm such a mess. It's all such a muddle. Suddenly it all seems like a terrible mistake, me coming back here for the summer. Raking up all the hurt.

I run in the back door, dump the bag of shopping on the kitchen table, run upstairs. I lie on my bed. Izzy's necklace in my pocket starts to hurt, pressed against my thigh. I take it out, dangle it in front of me. The shiny black stone has dried to a dull grey, but as it slowly revolves the light catches specks of crystal in it, like tiny stars. I hang the necklace in the window. Outside, the sky is a deep beautiful blue, but the day is spoiled now. I go back and lie on the bed for ages.

The house is deeply silent, as if it's empty. Gramps must be sleeping. Perhaps Evie is too. I don't go and check. I stay there on the bed, locked in my own misery. I don't even go down when I hear the tractor stop out in the lane, and the thud as the crab pots get dumped at the gate. The tractor starts up again: I let myself look from the bedroom window, but all I can see is the top of his head, his sun-bleached hair. It's all hopeless.

Why did Huw have to come back?

His part in things complicates everything, and now I have to think about that, too.

Eventually, I go downstairs. The shopping's all been put away in the cupboards. Evie's made food for us. She tells me about the doctor's visit.

‘It's his heart playing up. The doctor's left some pills. He needs to take things very easy for a while, but he'll be fine. ' Evie smiles, but her face is so tired and lined, big shadows under her eyes, she looks years older. ‘I thought I'd invite your dad over, if he can take some time off work. That would cheer Gramps up, seeing Martin. What do you reckon?'

I'm not sure, suddenly.

‘When?' I say.

‘When he can get away.'

‘Mum too?'

‘If she'll come.'

‘She said she wouldn't. Not ever again. Not here.'

Evie sighs. She flops down on a chair at the table, head in her hands. It scares me, seeing her look so . . . so
defeated
, somehow.

Evie looks up. ‘Sorry, love. I'm just a bit tired. Look, why don't you go and have some fun, join the other kids this evening? I'm not very good company at the moment. I'm going to get an early night.'

I get it. She wants me out of the way. Fair enough. I can disappear, easy enough.

Sixteen