Shallow Breath

33

Desi




Once Desi is back with her family in Lovelock Bay, she soon gets used to being partially invisible. While her mother and Jackson shower her with affection, Charlie is trying his best to pretend she doesn’t exist. The most she gets from him in the first few weeks home is a grunt at her initial hello. After that, he avoids her as much as possible.

It is no more than she expected, but it still hurts. And before long Hester’s attentions are beginning to grate on her, as her mother tries to make up for Charlie’s lack of affection a little too transparently. Only Jackson’s company is a true pleasure. His endless questions about sharks and dolphins and his repeated requests to see her few photographs not only allow her to relive the last eight months but also keep her distracted from the bigger question that flickers further into life each day.

Why hasn’t he called?

Since they parted, she has only spoken to Connor once, at the airport. He had promised to get in touch as soon as he was in the States. She had expected to hear from him within days. But one week came and went. And then two. She spends her evenings sitting in the kitchen, near the phone, not daring to go out in case she misses him. She tries to concentrate on her mother’s ceaseless conversation as she cooks the dinner and washes up. She studies the dome of her father’s balding head through the doorway as it peeps from the top of the sofa like a timid sun, and the TV’s light casts a colourful, ever-changing pattern over the semi-dark room. Jackson flies around her now and again with cars and planes, but it is as though her chair is an island, and the air between them all is a foggy, unfamiliar ocean. She pretends not to notice when her mother casts concerned glances in her direction. Her life has been suspended, while theirs carries on.

With each day that passes, Monkey Mia becomes more and more surreal, as though she has only had a particularly long dream, and has woken up to find herself in her bedroom at home. But another part of her knows there is no going back. Out on the boat she had become an adult, and an equal. She cannot return to being a child in this house for long. She fingers the pearl necklace incessantly. It is a talisman, a reminder that she needn’t worry, that she won’t be here forever.

Every night, once the household has gone to bed and all is quiet, Desi pulls out Connor’s notebook. She isn’t meant to have this. When she had unpacked her bag, she had found it along with one of Connor’s tapes. They were both unfinished. They were the ones in use on the boat on the final day, and Desi had taken them ashore but forgotten to pack them with the rest. Before settling down to sleep, she flicks through the book, running her finger along Connor’s neat handwriting, remembering it all, praying he will be here again soon.

Why hasn’t he called?



Rebecca comes to visit with news that she is engaged to Theo, and they are planning to elope. Desi is still reeling from seeing Rick, and debates asking about Marie, but doesn’t want to diminish her friend’s joy. And Rebecca has another piece of news too: that Rajah, Mila and Echo were moved to Hillarys boat harbour, and have adjusted to their new pen well. The day is a welcome distraction, until Rebecca asks about Monkey Mia. For, although Desi is desperate to talk to her about Connor and the dolphins, everything that comes out of her mouth seems inadequate. She cannot convey what it was like to someone who wasn’t there. By the time her friend leaves, she is feeling lonelier than she has ever felt in her life.

Why hasn’t he called?

Three and a half weeks after she arrives home, Desi spends her twentieth birthday vomiting. By now she has realised it is something more than being heartsick. That night she lies awake, one hand on her necklace, the other resting above the secret pearl in her belly, debating what on earth to do.

The next day she tries to get in touch with Pete. He doesn’t pick up his phone, but she leaves a message on his answering machine. ‘How are you? Connor hasn’t called me. Have you heard anything?’

She waits two more days, until, on one of the first scorching, airless afternoons of late spring, her mother looks through the kitchen window as she washes up and says, ‘I wonder who that is.’

Desi races across, hope fizzing through her. But it quickly falls flat.

‘It’s my friend Pete,’ she says, pushing away her disappointment. She rushes to the door expectantly. Surely Pete will have heard something.

She watches him getting out of the car, and waves hello. What is it that brings the first twitch of uncertainty? Could it be the way he squints solemnly at the house and pauses before closing the car door? Or is it his hesitant walk across to the verandah, avoiding her eyes?

If I do this, she remembers Connor saying, as he kissed her and then moved away smiling, we communicate with no words needed.

Distress is written in every movement of Pete’s body. Each pause is a clear portent of disaster. By the time he climbs the steps, she has begun to back away.

He lifts his head. ‘I’m so sorry, Desi,’ he begins, his face wretched, his voice cracking. ‘I have some terrible news.’

As he tells her, a moan flies from her unbidden. She turns blindly away and stumbles, and Pete is there, catching her, letting her fall against him as they kneel on the floor and she sobs into his chest.

In the first strange moments after she quietens, she tries desperately to return life to order. Her mind flashes through her memories, seeking to recapture Connor’s voice and conjure all the reassuring words that she’s been clinging to. But in that instant they are gone, and all she can hear is endless, empty static.