Shallow Breath (5 page)
I
t is five in the morning, barely light outside. Jackson is woken by someone walking in the corridor, ringing a handbell to get everybody up. His head is groggy – he has been kept awake most of the night by the noise of the engine as they travelled, a loud, chugging soundtrack to his mixed-up thoughts. Only as dawn was breaking had they stopped, leaving him dozing to the soothing slosh and gurgle of seawater against the boat.
He splashes cold water on his face and hurries upstairs to find that, impossibly, everyone has got there before him. The team are delving into platters of food – omelettes, vegetable rice, fruit and toast. The galley is the size of a toilet cubicle, and Jackson has no idea how they do it, but the food on this boat is amazing.
‘Ready?’ asks Ian.
‘Oh yeah,’ Jackson replies, wishing he could convey how grateful he is to be given this chance. Ian had begun involving Jackson in his research a couple of years ago, on his regular trips
to Ningaloo, but Jackson had never believed he’d be handed an opportunity like this. However, since Ian had damaged his leg in a car accident, he couldn’t do much swimming, and Jackson had become his trusted assistant in the water.
There is a small briefing while they eat, although most of the drill was outlined to them last night. They need to be kitted up and ready to jump in as soon as the first shark is sighted. When the captain comes to say the spotter plane is on its way, everyone gets up, people grabbing food off the platters and cramming it into their mouths as they leave. Out on deck, the focus is on getting ready, pulling on wetsuits, wetting masks and gathering fins. Two of the researchers have chosen to dive so they can film underneath the shark, while the rest, including Jackson, are snorkelling. As he moves to the stern of the boat, he hears a few whooshes of air as scuba tanks are turned on.
They stand on the dive platform in a line, waiting for the signal. Jackson’s adrenaline is pumping. The captain begins to shout ‘Ay-ay-ay-ay-ay!’, and Jackson looks up to see him shooing them impatiently. Someone else shouts ‘
Rapido, rapido!
’ and, as soon as one goes, they all fall in turn like dominos, leaving one world and entering another.
Jackson is so psyched that he hardly registers the cold as he hits the water. He loves this moment, the thrill of coming face to face with a living monolith. For the first couple of days he is here to learn about the new satellite tagging and retrieval techniques, but later on in the week, as long as they keep finding whale sharks, he should get a chance to try them for himself. When the time comes, he wants to be ready. The boat is full of people with letters after their names, and, although they are all remarkably kind and helpful, Jackson still wants to prove he is worthy of his place.
Jumping in with a whale shark is not an exact science. The
boat is moving, the animal is moving, and the first priority of a swimmer is to orientate themselves in relation to the whale shark and, if necessary, get swiftly out of the way. A whale shark can be slow to change its trajectory, and while collisions are almost unknown they are unlikely to be pleasant. But when Jackson sees the silhouette of this one, she is already beginning to glide away from them in the gloom. He swims quickly, finning hard to catch up, and draws level with her streamlined body, its unique markings charting unknown galaxies within constellations of vivid white spots and stripes. A squadron of pilot fish cruise in the slipstream beneath the shark, and the ever-present remoras are lined up under its chin, sucking on hard, hitching a ride while feeding on parasites. Jackson is in the perfect position to take an identification photo, but he has no camera. A scientist swims past him with a camera held out in front, and Jackson quickly moves away. He finds himself close to the whale shark’s head, sees her tiny eye swivel. She knows they are there but doesn’t divert from her course.
To Jackson’s disappointment, this one is already tagged, with a satellite transmitter designed to detach and pop up to the surface when it has finished retrieving data. Jackson hangs back a little as another researcher, armed with a spear to collect a skin biopsy, swims close to the shark and releases the instrument, which shoots into the polka-dot skin near its dorsal fin. It is designed to be a gentle nick, just enough to draw cells for vital research work, and the shark gives no indication of feeling anything, and keeps on gliding, pectoral fins as rigid as aeroplane wings, her tail waving with the grace of a dancer and the power of a submarine. She is gradually disappearing into the distant blue fog.
As soon as she is gone, the scientists return to the boat. The whole thing is over so quickly, and they have been so shallow,
that the divers don’t need safety stops. Jackson unbuckles his fins, hands them over and pulls himself up onto the splash deck. People get busy checking cameras and equipment, and Ian comes across to him.
‘How was it?’
‘Awesome.’
They all sit on the rear deck as the engine roars and the boat picks up speed, until they have caught up with the whale shark again. They repeat the same process until they are satisfied, then the search begins for another shark they can sample.
By mid-afternoon they have called it a day. Three individual whale sharks have been found, and Jackson has witnessed two of them being tagged. The morning has been a resounding success. While the boat picks up speed, returning to Darwin Island to find a sheltered spot for the night, Jackson goes to his tiny room and falls asleep for a few hours, not waking until they ring the bell for dinner. Upstairs, he finds more platters of rice, meat, fish and fruit, and everyone eats heartily. The talk is loud and heavily scientific. There are five international researchers on the boat, two of whom are based part of the year in the Galapagos, and two local guides. One of the local men, Sebastian, gets out a picture showing three happy children with dark hair and dark skin, their arms around each other. ‘My loves,’ he says, kissing the photo. ‘Do you have any children?’ he asks Jackson.
‘No,’ he laughs. ‘I’m a free man.’
Sebastian shakes his head. ‘You should have some soon. They are the greatest thing. Do you have a woman?’
Jackson hesitates, and the man slaps his arm. ‘You do! Well, have some babies with her. Don’t wait too long!’ he says, spearing another forkful of food.
Jackson doesn’t know how to respond to that. He and Kate are light years away from those kinds of conversations. So he
collects another plateful of food, and, as he begins to eat again, he finds himself unexpectedly thinking of Carla.
He barely thought of her any more. They had gone out together in high school and, for a little while, even though they had been so young, he had sometimes imagined that kind of future with her – not right away, obviously, but he could at least envisage it. And then she went on holiday with a group of friends to Bali, and everything changed. After an evening out, a few of them had gone on to the Sari Club, the others to bed. The bomb went off, and two of the revellers never came home.
Jackson had recently lost his own mother, and was busy trying to cope. He wasn’t prepared to deal with the extent of Carla’s grief. When she had ended their relationship, he had been so grateful. By the time he had got into his ute to head north he could hardly drive fast enough.
He still felt like a bit of a bastard. He hadn’t let her down, he told himself again and again. They were young. It wouldn’t have lasted. She was better off with someone who could understand what she had been through. And that’s where she had ended up – she had married Travis, one of his mates at school. They had two or three kids now, and when he saw her there didn’t seem to be any hard feelings. They had just taken different paths, that’s all, but not until Kate had he speculated whether the end of that relationship had left him with a reluctance to commit to another. He wasn’t any good at the emotionally heavy stuff. He was a man of action, not words, and women always wanted the words. It was exhausting, trying and failing to figure out the right ones. While Kate didn’t seem like that at all, they hadn’t known each other for long. It would come at some point, he was certain of it, and when it did he would probably let her down, just like Carla, by not knowing the right thing to say.
Sebastian sits next to him again, holding out a beer. Jackson
takes it gratefully, tries not to swig it all down in one go.
‘Tomorrow,’ Sebastian says, ‘after we have finished research, if there is time, we will do a hammerhead dive. Then you’ll see another wonder of the Galapagos.’
Jackson cheers up immediately at the thought of it. Soon, they have half a dozen empty bottles beside them and are chatting like old friends. Out of the corner of his eye, Jackson sees that Ian is glancing at him regularly while talking to the other researchers. He jumps up quickly and begins to clear the debris. Then he decides to check his email, telling himself he only wants to make sure that Desi is all right, but hoping there might be something from Kate.
I
n theory, Desi had always known how much she was missing, but only upon seeing Maya had she been confronted by the extent of it. As always, the sight of her stalled Desi’s breath, this girl she and Connor had made all those years ago, her eyes the same shape as her father’s, her pout all Desi, and in her body all those echoes of the little girl she had been at sixteen, at six, at six months old. All the tiny details that a mother could so easily find.
But Maya is different, too. She seems rangy and strong, while her face has thinned and tilted into an adult’s. Her body has lengthened, while her eyes have hardened with scepticism. Desi left one girl and has returned to another, not being there to witness the transformation.
If she had been present, would she have even noticed these changes? Probably not – seen daily they were too small to be perceptible. But Desi’s absence has severed this flowing connection between herself and her daughter, and she is the one
responsible. Her actions have sliced into their relationship and removed a chunk of precious, irreplaceable time. Would they always be aware of that now?
Maya’s lack of welcome had hurt, but it was to be expected. Desi knows she has a lot of making up to do, and she is not sure how to begin. Adrift in contemplation, she finds she has driven right away from Lovelock Bay, past all the turnings for Two Rocks, and reached the next small town of Yanchep. She heads to the lagoon, where she has swum so often. She always considers it a treat to come down here, where the water is usually so calm, but today the swimmers are getting tossed about in the restless water. She considers going for a swim anyway – fighting the current would give focus to this floppy day – but decides against it.
As she drives back up the coast, she searches for the familiar stone face in the distance, rising momentarily above the sprawl of bushland. The six-metre-high King Neptune was once the guardian of Atlantis, staring cheerfully over the marine park towards his ocean dominion. When the attraction had been closed, the swimming pools filled in and the buildings pulled down, he had been left there, alone. He still gazes out towards home, but vandals have painted his teeth lurid colours, coloured his eyes in red, and his expression has grown increasingly manic. Nowadays he no longer appears entirely happy – he looks as though he is gritting his teeth.
A small shopping centre sits nearby, one of the high limestone walls bearing a faded blue sign that was once the Atlantis insignia – two dolphins leaping together through a circle. Desi leaves Chug in the car park there, and walks towards the site of the old marine park. The wire fencing has been cut away and peeled back, and she glances around to see if anyone is watching her trespass, but the place is quiet.
She ducks behind a wall and follows a rough, broken trail, having to skirt and weave around thick bushes that have grown across it. After only a few metres, she comes across the winding path that leads to the statue. She makes her way up, treading carefully to avoid the scattered glass of broken beer bottles.
At the top, she climbs a small set of wooden steps to sit in Neptune’s hand, her legs dangling over his outstretched fingers, just as they did when she came here for the first time. She had been with Rebecca then; they were ten years old, laughing as they climbed, carefree in the joy of discovery. They had waved at Hester and Marie, who’d taken photographs that Desi hadn’t seen for a long time. It had been a few years before Desi had swum with the dolphin. A few years before the cracks began to show.
She studies the park site, trying to understand how the memory can remain so close and vivid when the intervening years have wrought so many changes in her life. Atlantis is now a monument to the tenacity of nature. The bush has leapt enthusiastically to reclaim the land for itself. One vision has replaced another.
There are still a few big clues to what it once was, like King Neptune and the water tank that bears scratched and faded emblems of Atlantis and Coca-Cola. But there are plentiful other smaller remnants to be found, too, if you took the time to look: a flight of stone steps; a broken pipe; a retaining wall. For the park’s opening, a local sculptor had carved statues of celebrities that had stood at the twelve points of a clock face so large you could walk around it. As each hour struck, the voice or song of the corresponding artist had come booming from a speaker. When the park closed, the statues were pulled down. Some of the giant heads had been transplanted only a few hundred metres away, and lined the children’s play area next
to the shops. Others had made it a kilometre or two down the road to a campsite and were rounded up on a small green there. Most had been creatively defaced. New generations of children clambered over them, unaware of their original context. The heads had given Maya nightmares when she was little.
As Desi wanders down the path again, away from Neptune, she glances across to where the clock was sited. In the distance, Charlie Chaplin’s body remains on its own, his head gone elsewhere like the rest. Someone has attached one of the
Scream
masks to his neck instead.
At the bottom of the path, she stops and listens, but hears only a graveyard of stillness. Thirty years ago, when the park was in its heyday, each morning had brought a rumbling of coaches and the hissing of brakes and doors. Ribbons of visitors had streamed out, all chatting and laughing as they wound around the park. A day at Atlantis was a day away from reality, and the relief of that – the joy of that – was infectious.
Desi has an overwhelming desire to find the place where the dolphin pool was, to stand on the spot and remember the time when all her dreams had seemed so close she could touch them. She spies another hole in the wire fencing and sees a flight of broken, uneven stone steps. She begins to make her way down, doing her best to hold back the brittle branches that scratch her at every opportunity. A spider’s web catches on her forehead and she stops while she pulls off the clinging threads. She peers ahead of her and sees they are everywhere, strung across the pathway, a few of the large arachnids spread-eagled in the centres of their lairs, waiting. No one must have come this way for a while.
Hastily she retraces her steps, and eventually finds another path running alongside a small stone wall. She passes a statue of a seal that towers above her, only just recognisable, huge chunks
of its body missing, a smile still visible on its bashed-in face. The walkway eventually curves around and opens out into a wider track. In some places, the pathways are visible; in others, the sand has smothered them, along with more debris and the ever-present broken glass. She walks quickly over the bowed planks of a half-broken bridge, only realising she has gone too far when she reaches the rubble of a man-made waterfall that had been part of the boating lake. She retraces her steps and relocates the huge water tank in the middle of the scrub. If she gets across there, she will be able to orientate herself better. She walks through the bushland again, going slower this time, keeping a careful lookout for the spiders, which have trailed their webs between cars’-width gaps in the bushes. She almost treads on a large bobtail, frozen so still that if not for the catchlight in its black eyes she would think it were dead. She keeps going until she is next to the water tank, searching around for evidence of the pool. She must be practically on top of it now, but all she can see is the long, dry grass. After the close call with the bobtail, her thoughts have strayed to snakes.
How can she not find the right spot? It had been enormous – four metres deep and twenty-three long by thirteen wide. How could it disappear so completely? And it wasn’t just the pool. There had been a grandstand, stage backdrops, gates, ice-cream vendors. She can still see the crowds gathering, smell the burgers and raw fish, hear the dolphins’ creaking, squeaking calls. How can there be nothing but wasteland? If the water tank wasn’t there, she would have no idea at all where the pool should be.
She goes across to the tank and slides down until she is sitting with her back leaning against it. Disappointed, she closes her eyes so that the landscape falls away around her. And then she sees it all again.
Desi is nearly eighteen, about to take part in her first show. She has been waiting for months, trained first as an understudy, desperate for someone to leave. Now she is standing to one side as people take their places in the grandstand. She has already spied her family: she can see Jackson looking for her, while Hester chatters to Marie, and Charlie stares at the pool. Rebecca is jiggling her knees up and down as she always does when on edge. Desi says a silent thank you that Rick isn’t there.
Marie spots her and waves, and Desi raises her hand quickly then turns away. She doesn’t want to be distracted; she is nervous enough as it is. She is wearing a silver one-piece swimsuit, with silver cuffs around her wrists and ankles, and her face is smothered in make-up. She’s sure that by the end she will look like her features have melted.
The sun beats down mercilessly, as it does most days of the Western Australian summer. If she moves a fraction, she can see over the rest of the park to a small patch of sea peeping at her from the horizon. Everything today feels like a pair of eyes on her: the squat water tower looming over them; the other performers regarding her nervously as an unknown quantity; and a dolphin cruising past in the pool below her, swimming on its side so that one eye peers up, assessing her.
The music starts, and she takes a few deep, shaky breaths, before she hears her name and runs out into the arena.
The dolphins are veterans. They know most of the routine before the signals, and are waiting in their next position long before she is, ready to go. Desi is doing well until she has to climb out with two other girls on the thin bar over the pool, ready to ride on the dolphins’ backs for the finale. She fumbles, trying to link arms with the girl next to her, who hisses, ‘
Quickly!
’ And then she stands on the wrong part of Frodo, who jolts to shift her, and she has to grab the rail, almost overbalancing.
But once he has dislodged the discomfort, Frodo waits patiently until he can feel her weight. He remains very still, much more so than the others, as though sensing her inexperience and giving her a little longer to get into position. And then they are off, with fixed smiles and free arms flung wide, all Desi’s muscles tensed and one arm tightly linked with the girl next to her. The dolphins race around the pool in choppy lunges, until they meet the bar again. Desi grabs for it as instructed, holds on tight, and her feet are left swinging underneath her as the dolphins bolt away and the applause begins.
Desi is still in costume when they find her afterwards. While she beams with happiness, her mother and Marie gush about how wonderful it was. Rebecca hugs her and laughs, relieved, while Jackson high-fives her and gives her a gap-toothed grin. Her father glares at her swimsuit, and then stands at the edge of the group, staring off towards the exit.
There are two other shows that day, and both go well. Afterwards, the team invite her down to the beach to celebrate. One of the men has a slab of beer on his shoulder, and it doesn’t take long before someone has to go back for another, and another. As the sun goes down, the jokes and discussions begin. They tell Desi that her career in entertainment will be one of the shortest-lived ever. They tell her about the rumours that the park will be closing soon. She is dismayed, having only just got this gig.
Please don’t take it from me
, she prays.
Eventually, the others slowly pack up and move on, urging her to leave with them. But Desi declines and stays there, gazing out across the water. Her father has agreed to take her home, but she doubts he is ready to leave the pub yet. Besides, she needs time alone to think. The euphoria swiftly followed by dejection has left her mind aching as her thoughts swirl. There is an alarming empty space where her future plans should be.
She decides to watch the sunset. Then she’ll go across to the pub and find her dad.
As the fiery colours of the sky begin to shift and coalesce, a small figure comes into view some distance away, walking slowly by the water, looking out to sea. Desi doesn’t recognise him, and, while he gets closer, she stays tense and still, aware she is alone with him in the semi-dark. As he goes by, he glances at her and smiles politely, then turns away. She relaxes, thinking that is it, but then he looks across again, as though checking something, and begins to walk over.
Desi starts to get up.
‘Were you in the show this afternoon?’ he asks, his accent elongating the vowels of the final word.
He has reached her quickly. He is not particularly tall, but seems strong and wiry, with long dark hair and an equally shaggy beard – most definitely the hippy type her father cannot stand.
‘Yes.’
‘I thought so.’ He sits down next to her without waiting for an invitation, takes a cigarette from his shirt pocket, lights it and begins to puff away, his eyes narrowing with each inhale.
‘Do you know that the dolphin’s main form of communication is sound?’ he asks. His eyes are as black as the deepest night, intent on the water in front of them.