Shallow Breath

22

Pete




Quite often at the moment, when Pete closes his eyes, his thoughts stray back across the years to Monkey Mia. He sees Connor’s contented, tanned face, his eyes always on the water, one arm slung casually over Desi’s shoulder. And he remembers Desi’s whole body pressed against Connor’s, her arms locked around his waist. It had been a halcyon period for all of them, even though, in reality, how long had he spent with them there? A few short visits adding up to a month, maybe two? But for this brief time their lives had been so vibrant, and none of them had ever recaptured it. They’d had youth on their side, and the glorious arrogance that went with it. They had each believed they could change the world; they were emboldened at the thought of making memories, rather than distracted by the ones they already had.

There had been peace in their surroundings too; nature’s beauty was a powerful balm for the mind. Pete had often felt something similar in the Indonesian rainforest – beguiled by sensory overload in a rare pocket of unplundered world. But in recent years it has become more and more surreal, like being at the point of a dream where you become aware you can’t stay much longer. With the orang-utans and so many other animals, species preservation has become a salvage operation – save what you can for as long as you can, and pray for a miracle, which so far doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.

In Monkey Mia, they had experienced all the problems of day-to-day life, and there could be disagreements between the different factions – the park management, the scientists and the tourists. But, above all, it had felt as though everyone was on the same side: the dolphins were far more loved than they were threatened. Whatever a person’s reasons for being there, whenever the dolphins came to visit, everyone came away smiling.

Until Pete had met Connor, his focus had been solely on doing well enough in his uni course that they couldn’t refuse him a job at the zoo. Then he had seen Connor’s advert for an assistant pinned to one of the faculty noticeboards. The twin drawcards of the dolphins and Monkey Mia sounded much better than spending the summer holidays working in a bar. He’d got the job; in fact, he had been the only applicant. He didn’t tell Connor until later that he’d torn the ad down so no one else would see it.

Connor and Pete had an immediate rapport. They had spent a few weeks together in Perth, sourcing equipment – a secondhand boat and electric motor, a hydrophone and laptop. The laborious drive north took another few days. They travelled slowly and carefully, always terrified of damaging their precious vessel, because they couldn’t afford another. Pete had not been north before, and he loved watching the landscape change from cultivated land to scrubby bush, until it became the deep orange dust of the outback.



Connor had such an affable manner that his return was welcomed by everyone: locals, the park managers and fellow scientists alike. Back in the early 1990s, only five dolphins were fed at the shoreline, but there could be anything up to a dozen coming to visit, and they were all part of a much larger wild population, on which Connor’s studies would be based. Thanks to the groundbreaking work of marine scientists in the eighties, there was already a database of individuals in the area, and a number of completed papers to refer to.

Connor’s focus was to be communication. Scientific papers the world over were showing that dolphins could learn and respond to a series of signs or commands, and more and more information was coming to light about their extensive use of echolocation. The range of sounds they could produce was immense, and extended at least ten times beyond the limits of human hearing.

But so much of the research had been undertaken in marine parks. Connor didn’t want to work in an artificial environment. He was interested in how groups of wild dolphins communicated with one another, and whether there were differences to the captive population. He hoped his work would complement the range of studies already completed or in progress in the field.

However, when they finally went out on the boat it became apparent that they had both overlooked an essential job requirement for first mate. It turned out there didn’t have to be much more than a mild swell to encourage Pete to lose his breakfast over the side. Connor had been kind, but Pete was horrified at his weak stomach. He had travelled to Denham and bought an assortment of tablets and herbal remedies. Nothing had worked, and he had begun to dread climbing onto the boat every morning, knowing that interminable hours of nausea lay ahead.



When Desi arrived, it had been a huge relief. He had agreed to step down and return home – his uni course was beginning again soon anyway. But he had spent a week with them, handing over the reins. He witnessed the determination with which Desi threw herself into the challenges of her new life. Whatever they taught her, whether it be how to operate the sonar equipment or how to tie a knot, Desi would practise it until she was perfect. She had a great memory and learnt quickly. During the day, she was confident around the water: she swam like a fish, and could bounce around on the deck and help out with no indication of nausea. In the evenings when it was her turn to cook, they ate far better than on the other nights. And she always hummed softly to herself while she worked.

Connor seemed delighted, and loved to tease her. It had begun on the very first night, when he’d discovered that Desi hadn’t even brought a tent. ‘The one thing I told you to bring,’ he’d laughed as Desi looked alarmed. He’d inspected their own modest accommodation. ‘I guess there’s room for three.’

Without conferring, the boys had smartened up their act once Desi was there. They kept the inside of the tent tidier. They kept themselves a bit cleaner. And Pete noticed that Connor always went to the camp toilets during the night, rather than staggering into the nearby bush.

Desi got some shocks too. On their first day on the boat, when she’d asked what they did about toilets, Connor had indicated the sea. ‘There you go.’

She had given a short, perturbed bark of laughter. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m afraid there’s no going back for rest stops. You’ll just have to hang your butt over the edge.’

She had been horrified, but to her credit she had never moaned about it. Pete had tried to avert his eyes for her first few clumsy attempts. But Connor had openly laughed at her as she struggled to hold herself up using the handrail at the stern.

Pete still wishes he could have had the chance to know Desi before she met Connor. Perhaps if he could have talked to her first, had her full attention on him for a little while, then she might see him more clearly now. Instead, he had watched it all from the sidelines, falling in love and knowing there was no chance. When Pete first laid eyes on Desi, she already worshipped Connor. And while Connor had taken more time to reciprocate, when Pete had returned to visit them a few months later they were an item. And he had to admit they made a great team.

Still, while you could see that Desi held nothing back in her affections, there had been moments when Connor’s smile seemed a little strained, his relaxed pose slightly forced. At the time, Pete had dismissed it as his own jealousy, searching for chinks in their togetherness so that he might better endure their enviable happiness. But later he thought he understood.

Was it finally time to tell Desi everything? Would it help, or make things worse?




Pete is stirred from his memories by a heavy pain running from shoulder to elbow. Alarmed, he looks down to see Desi’s head nestled in the crook of his arm. She is fast sleep.

He gently pulls his arm from under her, putting a cushion there instead, then sits up. He rubs his face, and turns to watch Desi sleeping. The urge to lean over and kiss her is strong, and he wonders if she would wake up if he did, and what she would do. But he daren’t risk it. He knows they share a deep connection, but still, all these years later, nothing will release her fully from Connor’s spell. From the point of his death, she has been sleepwalking, permanently caught within the congealing amber of grief, unable to wrest herself free. Pete can do nothing more than helplessly witness, until he figures out some new trick to finally pull her from her torpor.

He rolls his shoulders, trying to relax. The reminiscences of Monkey Mia have set his mind straining, as though trying to push some connection into his consciousness. Then he realises: the book he’d seen Maya slot into a drawer. He hadn’t recognised it at the time, but now he thinks he knows what it is.

He has an overwhelming desire to check. He gets up and creeps towards Desi’s bedroom, sits on the bed and pulls the drawer open as quietly as he can. He takes out the red leather book and lets it rest in his hands for a moment. He can’t abide snooping. What if he’s mistaken, and this is Desi’s diary? Then Maya shouldn’t have been reading it, and neither should he.

Before he can get into a debate with himself, he opens the cover and begins to turn the pages. He’s right. It is one of Connor’s logbooks from Monkey Mia: tables of data, and short snippets of information. Columns for dates, times, dolphin names, observations and series of letters and figures that Pete knows match up to sound recordings. Looking at the dates, he sees it would have been the end of the research period. Sure enough, while the first half of the book is full, the rest is blank pages.

Why on earth had Maya taken this? He flicks through again, seeing only more of the same information. What use could it possibly be to her?

He returns the book to the drawer and lies on Desi’s bed, hands behind his head, thinking hard. In the background, he is vaguely aware of his phone bleeping once, signalling an incoming message, but he is too busy trying to put himself in Maya’s position, imagining what she’s been up to. He thinks of all the questions she has asked about Connor since Desi went to prison. He knows she is angry with her mother, too much to admit how much she has felt her absence. But he had forgotten she is already missing a father too – for Pete had been concentrating on filling the gap. Since this book can serve no practical purpose, he suspects she took it to be close to her dad.

Pete understands that Maya will always have a longing for Connor that he can never assuage. And that she sometimes overlooks Pete as a father figure, perhaps because his relationship with Desi is so indefinable. Over the course of her lifetime he has been away a lot. How is she expected to trust he will be there for her? And yet he wants to point out that he has never missed a birthday. That he calls without fail every week to see how she is. And that when he had to make a difficult choice, he chose her. I’m here, he is desperate to say. And I promise not to go anywhere, whatever happens. It is safe to lean on me.

Is that realistic, though? Can he make that promise in truth?

‘Your phone is beeping.’ Desi is standing at the doorway, her eyes weary, clutching his phone.

He holds a hand out and she passes it over, then comes down and lies next to him on the bed while he reads the message. It’s from Declan.

‘I need to talk to you about Berani. Call me when you can.’

Pete sighs and checks the time.

‘Are you okay?’ She puts her hand on his arm.

‘I don’t know.’ He sits up. ‘I need to make a call.’

But when he rings Declan, it goes through to voicemail. ‘Call me,’ Pete says. ‘I’ll be awake for a while.’

Desi pulls herself up to sit beside him on the bed.

‘I’m thinking of going to see Maya,’ he says.

‘When?’

‘Right now. I think we’re getting it wrong, waiting for her to come to us. She might appear grown-up, but she’s fragile. I want to talk to her properly. Let her know I’m here for her.’

‘I think that’s a good idea.’ She hesitates. ‘Can I come too?’