Shallow Breath

V


It is not enough to be compassionate – you must act.

HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA





She doesn’t realise until too late that she is being driven towards the rocks. Not until her hands and knees start to scrape the jagged, callous surface. Soon she is bleeding, and crawling rather than swimming, trying to stagger to her feet in a vain attempt to run.

Her pursuers know the area well. They slow the boat ahead of her, and two men jump over the side, landing easily. They sprint over the rocks, clamp their hands around her wrists as they scream at her, and start to drag her to the boat.

WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?

She cannot change a thing.

It is over.





47

Charlie




Charlie wakes up in his armchair with a grunt. It’s five thirty in the morning. Still dark outside, but not for much longer. He pushes on the handle at the side of his chair to tuck away the footrest, then aims the remote at the strobing television, which falls obediently silent. Dink, his ancient staffy, looks up briefly from his bed then settles down again.

Piercing pain strafes Charlie’s body as he struggles to his feet. He stoops and tries to straighten, defying the protests of his knees and back. He wanders to the bedroom and grabs some rumpled shorts and a polo-neck shirt. The old double bed functions more as a wardrobe nowadays; he barely sleeps in it any more. The easy chair is just as comfy, and not so much effort. And it is built for one.

In the kitchen, he makes himself a sandwich, as he does most mealtimes. Occasionally he might indulge in a hot dinner at the pub, but lately he doesn’t have the energy to drive there. It’s not worth it just to prop up the bar on his own.



His jaw is stiff as he chews while standing over the sink, surveying the park site as the first insipid daylight colours awaken. When he’s finished, he dusts off his hands and goes to start the quad. He likes to get the rubbish collected and the facilities clean and tidy first thing; then he can get back to the office to take ablutions keys and return deposits when the early birds start to leave.

As the quad bounces along the track, his ribs begin to ache; but he sits soldier straight, gripping the handles hard. He ignores a mess of scattered bottles outside one of the tents. He’ll keep the drunkards’ bond if they don’t tidy it.

Even without seeing the empty parking space, Charlie can tell Jackson isn’t there. There is a silent, invisible void of absence hanging over the caravan. He drives past, reminding himself that he has to start making lists for Jackson to follow. Since his son met the American girl, he’s been too distracted to be much use to anyone.

Maya’s car isn’t there either, but to Charlie’s consternation that dark-skinned lad – the one who visits her at all hours – is sitting on the steps to her van.

He stops the quad. ‘Is Maya in there?’ he calls across as he climbs off.

The lad looks up at him. ‘I don’t think so. I guess she’s swimming already. I thought I’d wait for her to come back.’

‘It’s too early for that,’ Charlie barks. ‘And this is private property. I’ll tell her you called by, eh?’

He watches the boy hesitate then get up slowly and come forward. Charlie tenses, noticing cuts and bruises on his face and arms. He must have been brawling, he decides. Typical. He’s got no sympathy at all for layabouts.

‘I just wanted to give her this. I found it in my car. She must have dropped it.’



He holds out a necklace with a pendant dangling from it. Charlie doesn’t move for it straight away, knowing that his fingers don’t handle delicate objects well. But when the boy keeps on waiting, he reluctantly proffers his palm.

He recognises it straight away. First instinct tells him it belongs to Desi, but perhaps he’s wrong. He can’t connect the dots as well as he used to. He stares at the little white pearl and the silver dolphin that clings to it.

‘I’ll pass it on,’ he says gruffly, pushing the chain into his pocket as best he can.

‘Can you tell Maya I came over? My name’s Luke,’ the boy calls as Charlie turns away.




When Charlie reaches the office, one couple are already waiting to hand in their keys. He deals with their bond, then studies the park plan and realises there is no one else due to leave or arrive today. His hand keeps on straying to his pocket, checking the necklace is there. He’s remembered now: it had belonged to Desi first – the Yank had given it to her. He collects the keys to his ute. He’s been waiting for an excuse to talk to his daughter. This is as good as any.

Before he sets off, he pulls the pendant out of his pocket and stares at it again. He’s never seen the point of jewellery. It is an unnecessary extravagance when there are always bills to pay. Hester had managed well enough without trinkets; hadn’t he tried to love her through the hard work that allowed her to sit in a comfy chair each night after a good meal?

Besides, he thinks, climbing into his vehicle, Hester didn’t make a fuss about stuff like that. He had appreciated it, and tried to reciprocate by turning a blind eye to her sentimentality – the incessant parade of animals that she nurtured like children, and her wet eyes when they died one by one. As though she was surprised! As if it ran against the natural order of things! ‘That’s what happens,’ he’d told her more than once, trying to quell the frustration in his voice. ‘It’s the way of the world.’ And she would nod, and bow her head, but it never stopped her crying the next time.

As time went by, he wasn’t sure whether Hester had loved him, or whether she suffered him with stoic endurance. He suspected that she had got engaged to one man and married another, after he came back from Vietnam. At times, he agreed with her. Sometimes in the dead of night when he woke shivering and sweating she would stroke his back lovingly without a word, and it took all his patience not to grab her f*cking wrist and twist with all his might.

And he hadn’t tried to understand her much either, until it was too late. It had been easier to spend time with Rick, where companionship ran little further than checking a craypot or downing a pint. There was no pressure to explain anything. They were both glad to leave the women to get on with the babies while they escaped the piercing, whining cacophony that grew to a fever pitch at every bloody mealtime.

He knows he hasn’t been a brilliant father. He’d have no problem admitting that to anyone, he thinks, as the ute bumps its way down the track. You only know whether you’re cut out for it when it’s too late. Still, he had tried to be a man about it, to work hard and pay the bills. Neither Desi nor Jackson had ever thanked him for it. But that part he’s sure he did right.

It doesn’t take long before he pulls up at the shack. He slowly climbs the steps to the verandah, and knocks, but no one is here either. Where the hell is everyone today? Frustrated, he stares out at the view.



Since the idea first struck him, he’s been keen to find Desi. It’s time to call a truce, because he wants to ask her to trade places with him. He’s had enough of the wretched park site. He’s desperate to retire to somewhere he can sit in peace without the intrusion of strangers. And from what he’s heard, Desi needs a job. She could get the caravan park back on its feet. He’s sure there’s potential, he just can’t be bothered any more.

He takes the necklace out of his pocket and considers it for a moment, resenting the smug, smirking face that curls over the gemstone. He resists the urge to throw it towards the bushes, and instead he wraps it around the door handle a few times, so the little pendant hangs down.

Dolphins have always been Desi’s good-luck charm, but to Charlie they feel more of a curse. Whenever he has heard them mentioned, nothing good has followed. First of all, everyone including his wife and daughter had gone gaga over the group at Atlantis, turning the quiet town he loved into a Japanese-coach depot. Then Desi had run away so she could lie on a boat watching them day after day, convinced she could make a valid career out of playing meet and greet with a bunch of cetaceans.

And to top it all, Jackson had confided in him, telling him there was another one that came into the same spot he was staring at right now, simply to swim with them.

As soon as he had let it slip to Rick, he had regretted it. Not because he thought the man would go and kill it, but because of the stream of sarcasm it had invoked, night after night. While Charlie didn’t care, Hester obviously did. He could usually tell she was in the kitchen, listening.

He would never forget the contempt that raged across her face as she told him what his mate had done. He knew he’d be getting the silent treatment for a few days, but as it turned out Hester would never speak to him again. After her stroke, he was practical and attentive – everything that she deserved for putting up with him for so many years. But how he hated catching her eye.

At first, he had been disturbed by Rick’s actions, because they seemed both unnecessary and pointless. But as time went on, and Hester’s accusatory glances continued, he longed to say to her, ‘It was still only a dolphin, you know, even if you gave it a pet name and tickled its belly.’ But he knew that she would understand his logic as little as he understood hers.

There is no point in waiting around here. He turns his back on the vista and climbs down the steps again, feeling guilty that he hasn’t visited Rick in such a long time. After Desi’s recklessness and conviction, he’d felt too awkward, but perhaps it had been long enough now that he could look his old friend up again.

He gets back into the ute and drives a little further along the headland, parking in the driveway of Rick’s house. There’s no reply to his knock, but when he tentatively tests the door handle it gives.

He opens the door, but doesn’t have time to call out. It is only a few steps to the lounge, and an enraged voice is already bellowing from the darkened room.

‘About time too! I hope you’ve got an apology for me, you little slut. You’ve turned into as big a bitch as your mother, and that’s saying something.’

Charlie walks into the room, his eyes locating a dense mat of unwashed white hair over the top of the armchair’s headrest. As Rick comes into view, Charlie sees that he hasn’t taken his eyes off the television. His body sags into the chair, his flaccid face pale except for the spider veins that have spun a bloodied web over his nose and cheeks. Patches of his beard are stained yellow.



‘Just leave my f*cking dinner and piss off again, will you?’

Charlie waits a moment, but Rick doesn’t move. The silence is only broken by the television and Rick’s wheezing breaths.

Eventually Charlie asks, ‘Who do you think you’re speaking to?’

Rick’s expression switches to surprise as he registers Charlie’s voice and finally looks across.

To Charlie’s consternation, he finds he is trembling. ‘Were you talking to Rebecca? Were you talking to your daughter just then?’

Rick stares blankly back at the screen. And something crumbles in Charlie as he stands there, his former friend atrophying in the lounge chair in front of him. Something must surely have changed in the past couple of years. He doesn’t remember Rick like this.

The television gives off a particularly bright flicker. It is only for an instant, but within the flash he sees Hester’s cold face challenging him, staring him directly in the eye.