Shallow Breath

37

Desi




It is December 1992. Outside, the jacaranda is in full flower, purple corsages dripping from its branches. Inside, Desi is struggling.

She is going through the motions of living as best she can. She eats and sleeps when her mother tells her to, and keeps away from everybody, withdrawing to her room or taking long walks on the beach. Rebecca and Pete visit frequently, and she can see how hard they are trying, but she cannot summon the energy to enjoy their company. Instead, she endures it, trying not to look at the clock.

Each day she has to remind herself that Connor is dead. She still cannot believe it. It is as though life has become nothing more than a trick of the eye, and now and again she sees through it momentarily, to confront the horror of Connor gone for eternity. But just as quickly the vision rearranges itself into a more general miasma of absence. Her family have never been churchgoers, and Desi has not paid God much attention before, but now she says her prayers every night – as though, if she believes hard enough, and begs for long enough, Connor might still return.

Her stomach is beginning to swell. She drives to the doctor, who confirms the pregnancy. His expression turns concerned as she bursts into tears and cannot answer his question as to whether she is pleased. But the next day, with this new certainty comes a fresh determination.

Connor’s child is growing inside her. There is a connection between them now that cannot be lost.

She cradles the knowledge to herself for a little while, but once she is starting to show she decides it is time to confess. She thinks of telling her mother first, but doesn’t want to put her in an awkward position with Charlie. And above all, she wants to make it clear to her father that she is not a coward, and not ashamed. So she waits for her opportunity, which comes one morning at breakfast, while Jackson is busy playing outside.

She sits down in front of them and says without preamble, ‘I have something to tell you both. I’m pregnant.’

Hester looks up with no surprise, and Desi can see she has already guessed. Her mother’s steady gaze holds no censure, but transmits a calm strength. Meanwhile, Charlie gets up without a word, and walks away.

Desi thinks that’s it, but a few seconds later he returns, tightly gripping the top of his chair, his face burning red. He addresses Hester as though Desi isn’t there.

‘What did I tell you? He took her and used her and dumped her back here.’

Desi is up in an instant, the chair grating harshly on the tiles as she flings it away. She marches over to her father, pushing her face towards his. ‘He’s dead, Dad,’ she says, spitting each word at him, trying to catch hold of her breath. ‘He didn’t abandon me. He died.’



Her words release a torrent of emotion that washes away her composure. She runs out the kitchen door and across the caravan park, crying, not caring who sees her. She stumbles onto the beach, pockets of sand tripping and trapping her in unseen hollows. She sits down heavily and stares hard at the water. Come back, Connor, she pleads. Make this nightmare go away. Make it all a terrible mistake.

But the ocean is flat and empty all the way to the horizon.




In the following weeks, Charlie announces that Desi will need to find somewhere else to live before the baby is born. Hester tries to talk him out of it, but he will not be swayed. Desi is ambivalent. She longs for some privacy, and doesn’t want her child’s grandfather scowling every time they are in the same room. But she has no idea where she can go.

Pete is her saviour, arriving with a cheque from Connor’s family. ‘I told them about you. I hope you don’t mind,’ he says. ‘They sent this. It’ll get you a deposit and then some.’ Overwhelmed with gratitude, she writes to thank them and begins to search for somewhere to live. It seems like fate that the shack is for sale. Hester encourages her, assisting her with the bank applications and acting as guarantor for the small mortgage. Before she knows it, Desi is living in her childhood home again.

But when she moves in, she starts to discover all the things she had been too preoccupied to notice on inspection. The recent owners have not tended to the property as carefully as Hester did. As a result, the place feels unfamiliar – shabby and neglected. After Pete, Jackson and Hester have helped her move in, and left her alone, she allows herself to panic.



Why has she trapped herself by buying this house, and signing on for a mortgage? She is stuck. Once the baby has come, and she has had the first few months of government support and the extra from Connor’s money, she will have to get a job. Who will take care of her child then? And what kind of employment is she going to find around here?

One step at a time, she tells herself, during the sleepless nights that follow. Fix the house up. Sell it. You can still go north one day. She reminds herself of the risks she has already taken, hitching all the way to Monkey Mia to take a chance on her dreams. There is no reason she cannot do that again.

Except that Connor had been the source of her confidence. He was the one with the convictions, and the exciting way of thinking about the world. It would never be the same without him.

Desi becomes lost within this endless swirl of thoughts. As her belly keeps growing, her dreams begin to shrink, until they are as small as a single grain of sand, hidden with countless others along a deserted shoreline of possibilities.

She stops working on the shack, and begins to drift aimlessly through her days. The only place she feels calm is on the verandah, where she can watch the ocean. After a while, she moves an armchair outside and takes blankets too, so she can stay curled up long after it is dark, lulled by the murmuring waves. During the day, she begins to eat her meals there, checking the horizon after each bite as though the answer will eventually come into view, if only she waits long enough.

For a while the ocean becomes her closest friend. She gets to know it intimately, observing the many changes of its day. She watches as its colours merge from the lilac blues of morning to the shimmering gold of sunset. She witnesses it sparkling in sunshine and glowering in the deep grey of a storm. She sees the smooth surface begin to roll, or become choppy with a million flashing breakers, before it subsides, and starts again. And eventually it dawns on her that this kaleidoscope of colour and animation does not begin with the ocean, but with external forces – the sun, the wind, the moon, the clouds. What would the ocean be like if you took these away? Would she recognise it at all?

Her perspective begins to shift. Perhaps her purpose was never in Monkey Mia, she consoles herself, rubbing her belly and getting an obliging kick in return. This is Connor’s child, after all. She taps her fingers against her necklace. Perhaps one day she will discern a different meaning in everything that has happened.

And yet, it still feels as though she is walking down a long, dark tunnel, with no idea what will be at the end. As she waits for her baby to arrive, one empty day follows another, until they are tethered together like paper-chain dolls, and the world outside the shack ceases to exist.