Breathe Read online

  There was one—she was attractive in a brittle, peevish kind of way—she was the leader. The others were larger than her, taller; one was quite fat. They were her minions: by their sheer bulk they would seem to dominate, but they would always do what she said. As the large feel about the small—as Trout felt about Undine—they would be compelled by blind, stupid instinct to protect her.

  To say he decided to follow them would be overstating the case. Simply he found himself caught up in their wake; he trailed closely behind them. They did not appear to notice him but this, he knew, was his special talent, his superpower. He had always blended into the background of things.

  One of the girls, he observed, was carrying a brick, or rather half a brick, her long fingers wrapped around it. Another had a plastic bag with a heavy tub in it; she shifted it from hand to hand as if the weight was burdensome. The small one carried nothing. She spoke more quietly than the others; her voice was high and thin and she had the hint of a captivating sibilant lisp. Her face was pale and flattish and heart shaped; her hair was dark with the faintest insinuation of curl. She was the one who caught his eye. She was meant to; she had carefully arranged it to be so. She was the type to surround herself with people who, neither ugly nor beautiful, would always fail to capture someone’s interest.

  Trout overtook the girls, knowing it was less conspicuous to seem to be in the lead than following behind. He passed them, walking slightly onto the road, conveying the vague impression that he had been trying to overtake for some time. The largest girl glanced at him perfunctorily; clearly she considered it her role to physically protect the group, but as Trout posed no threat, her eyes passed over him, glazed, barely registering him. The small one, the leader, didn’t even look up. On closer inspection, Trout saw that her nose was slightly snubbed, her pale skin freckled. She clearly had the capacity to appear quite plain, ugly even. Beauty works in mysterious ways.

  They traveled down one of the main roads that intersected the city, past the park, turning left into Battery Point. This was a suburb of tightly packed streets, as precise and as old as the interior mechanism of an antique watch. It was a suburb of old rich people and students: close walking distance to the university, the art school, and the conservatorium of music as well as the market, the wharf, and the city.

  On the other side of the road, Trout matched their pace. As they progressed through the streets, past the sleeping houses, the girls grew quiet and purposeful. They arrived finally at a weatherboard house that had been converted into two flats, one upstairs, one down. The brick was placed aside for the moment; it was the plastic bag’s contents that were of immediate interest. Trout stood in the shadows, largely concealed by parked cars, watching as the girls produced a tin of paint and three brushes. They set to work on different sections of the concrete driveway, the occasional giggle or exclamation erupting, quickly answered by violent shushing.

  After a short period the larger girls put down their brushes. The small girl kept writing. The other two were clearly getting jumpy.

  “Come on,” they hissed, despite the fact that the downstairs flat remained dark and quiet, the occupants clearly unaware of what was going on outside.

  “Come on.”

  The girl got up, admired her work, and dusted off her hands. They dropped the brushes and the tin back in the bag. There were some more fierce whispers among the girls before the large one picked up the brick and hurled it at the house. It missed the window and hit the front door with a loud crack that rang through the street. The girls ran. They dispersed, confused. Two ran away from Trout up the street, squealing and laughing, jumping into a garden to hide. The third—she was neither fat nor thin, but she was cumbersome and heavy-footed—ran straight past Trout. He could hear her breathing in short, ragged gasps. Her face was white and strained, with guilt perhaps, or with the fear of being caught. She stopped a little distance away and regretfully watched the other two girls disappearing into the garden. Then, her hand pressed against her side as if she had a stitch, she kept walking in the direction she had been running, alone.

  Trout could not see what was written on the driveway. He stepped forward to read it, but before he had a chance to, a yellow light illuminated the front door and it opened. A tall, bony girl with white-blond hair looked straight at him. Her hair looked slept on; her feet were bare in the cold winter air. She wore a blue singlet and men’s pajama bottoms. Her gaze seemed to slice through him, like a knife cutting into the soft underbelly of a fish.

  She looked down at the driveway. She read one of the messages, tilting her head. She walked down and read all of them, her icy blue eyes widening with disbelief. She cupped her hands over her mouth and said something into them that Trout couldn’t hear. He was rooted to the ground, cursed by his inaction as her eyes began to leak tears.

  She walked up the driveway and looked left and right to the ends of the street.

  “What does she want from me?” she said, mystified—to Trout, to the street, to the winter air? Trout couldn’t be sure. She hadn’t looked at him, not directly, but surely she must be aware that he was there. “She can keep him. It’s nothing to do with me now.”

  Trout had no answer. His heart hammered. His ribs ached. His voice was caged in his throat; he wanted to release it. But as he tried to choke sound out of his dry throat, she turned, still without looking at him, and went back to her flat. At the door she rubbed halfheartedly at the black mark the brick had left on the white paintwork. She stooped to pick up the brick and took it with her inside her flat.

  When Trout walked back up the street toward home, the three girls had gone; there was no sign of them. The night that they had come from had swallowed them whole.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  There was a particular smell in the math classroom, like old rubber and stale air and past students, as if the heater had stored up the same smell from previous years and then released an older, more unpleasant version of it. Undine hated math first thing in the morning; her breakfast churned in her stomach as soon as the smell hit her.

  “Are you and Dominic coming to Duncan’s birthday party?”

  Duncan was Fran’s boyfriend. He was at uni, in his third year studying medicine, and was friends with Trout’s brothers.

  “When is it? I’ll have to check with Lou.”

  “It’s next month. Please come,” Fran begged. “It’s so much better when you’re there.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Grunt will be there.” Fran poked her, grinning wickedly.

  Undine poked Fran back. “So? I have a boyfriend, remember?”

  But Undine felt the hairs on her head prickle at the roots at the thought of seeing Grunt—Alastair—again. She hadn’t seen him alone since the Bay of Angels the year before, though sometimes she went to a uni party with Fran and he would be there: gentle, attentive, remote, unattainable.

  Trout came in late. He hadn’t been on the bus again. Undine observed him from where she sat with Fran at the back of the room. He was tired, gray, and kind of washed out, as if a small internal tide was grinding him down.

  “He looks terrible,” Fran murmured.

  “Trevor Montmorency,” intoned Mr. Anderson. “Late again? We are going through the homework from last Friday. I trust you’ve done it.”

  Trout mumbled an excuse as he sat down. Mr. Anderson leaned over him and spoke in a muted, impatient tone. Undine knew the speech; the teachers all used some version of it: “letting yourself down…final exams…the most important year of your life…expected better from you…sorely disappointed…”

  “My father has invited me to go to Greece with him,” Undine told Fran. She didn’t want to talk about Trout; she felt weighed down by the responsibility of him, the changes he had clearly undergone since last summer. She did not understand exactly what had changed him, and in fact the change had come so gradually that it was impossible to name the point where regular Trout had slipped away.

  “Really?” Fran squealed. M
r. Anderson glared at her. “I am so madly jealous! When?”

  “I’d be away for the September break, and then the first two weeks of next term, so four weeks holiday.”

  “That’s less than six weeks away! Oh, heaven,” sighed Fran enviously. “Greece.”

  “Lou hasn’t exactly said yes yet. But she hasn’t said no.”

  “She’ll say yes. She has to. It’s Greece!”

  Undine snorted. She wasn’t sure if Fran’s logic would work on Lou.

  Trout and Undine sat together on the bus, not speaking. Glimpses of the river, as smooth and gray as a sheet of metal dividing the land, flashed between the trees, telegraph poles, and houses on their right. Already Undine could taste the dark coming. Night fell early in winter. It would not be long before the sun set, long streams of rosy pink or bright orange streaking out from behind the hazy blue mountain.

  Trout shrank away from the window, leaning toward the aisle of the bus.

  “Are you okay?” Undine asked.

  He looked at her sideways, as though he hadn’t even the energy, or perhaps the will, to turn his head.

  “I wish you would stop asking me that,” he said wearily. “I’m fine.”

  Undine sighed and looked out the window again. She glanced back. Trout’s head was down; he stared at a point in space between him and the floor. He seemed so…sad wasn’t quite the right word. Depleted. Kind of finished. She was frightened for him.

  She reached out and touched his hand. Trout’s face softened. His fingers took hers, and held them.

  It was surprising to Undine, how alien his skin felt against hers. As friends they rarely touched. She was suddenly embarrassed by it, the touching. She wanted to withdraw her hand—it twitched involuntarily—but she didn’t want to hurt Trout’s feelings. The bus stopped; his hand slipped from hers. They didn’t make eye contact. But Trout seemed to sink even deeper inside himself. They disembarked from the bus and, wordlessly, they parted.

  That night, breaking his own promise to himself to be random, Trout found himself walking through Fitzroy Gardens—the empty swings swaying slightly in the breeze as if remembering children past—and over Sandy Bay Road back to Battery Point. The writing on the driveway had gone, scrubbed away; all evidence of the event he had witnessed had vanished. The night was like that, transient, temporary. It left its scars, but not where anyone could see them.

  He’d seen what he came to see. “So walk away,” he said out loud. But he found himself creeping down the length of the driveway ninja style—toes first—to where the concrete broke up into rubble and the lawn messily began. At the back of the house the windows went from ceiling to floor, though curtains were drawn all around to keep out the cold night, to keep out the eyes of strangers who might plant themselves in the garden as Trout had done.

  Visible through the curtains was a thin crack of light, and Trout found he was inexorably drawn to it, his heart fluttering like a moth at an exposed bulb.

  She was awake, reading by lamplight. Trout edged closer. She sat sideways in the chair, at first Trout thought in a picture of peaceful repose. But he realized she often glanced up at the front door, twitching nervously when a dog barked or a car drove past or when the wind played the walnut tree like an old creaking cello. (Trout jumped with her at every sound.)

  She turned the page of her book back and forth. Trout recognized her insomnia. She was afraid to go to sleep, in case those girls returned.

  It struck Trout that somehow their individual lives had become concurrent; they were bound together by their separate roles—victim, witness—in the same small drama. She rose; she moved toward the crack in the curtains where he was standing. She shivered. Suddenly, for the briefest of moments, he wanted her to see him. He wanted to be seen, to be observed, to have his existence confirmed; suddenly he was afraid if no one looked directly at him, he might disappear altogether.

  She flicked the curtain fully closed.

  He ninja-walked back to the road; as soon as his feet touched the footpath he broke into a run. He pounded his feet heavily on the concrete, but his shoes were soft-soled and the terraced rows of sandstone houses on either side of the street seemed to absorb the noise, so despite his carelessness he made little noise, little impact on the sleeping city.

  When he got home, he let himself in with care. He slipped out of the coat and nudged off his shoes.

  From the bottom of the stairs, he saw the blue flickering light of the television emanating from the lounge room. He felt a jolt of alarm—was someone waiting up for him? He walked softly toward the room and peered in.

  His father was sitting in one of the soft creaky armchairs, watching an infomercial with an expression of incredulity on his face. He noticed Trout.

  “Oh,” he said. “Did I wake you? I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Me neither,” said Trout. His father didn’t ask him why he was dressed, or even seem to notice.

  “I’m not sure what this thing is,” said Mr. Montmorency. “But I feel a strange urge to buy it.”

  Trout settled down into the other armchair. He found the garish colors and the plastic, buoyant tone of the presenters soothing, and here, sitting next to his dad, he allowed himself to close his eyes for a minute and sleep.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The weekend did not look encouraging. The clouds were gray and low, bearing down heavily on the earth. Lou was doing the laundry, and the smell of washing powder and lavender oil filled the house oppressively. Even the dryer had a particular smell, of hot crisp air and baked clothes. The heater was on, the house was warm, but somehow the cold seemed to penetrate Undine’s mood, and she walked about the house restlessly, unable to settle on anything.

  Lou observed Undine’s mood for a while—Jasper too was bored and fidgety, tipping toys recklessly out on the floor only to abandon them—then said casually, “I rang the publisher yesterday.” Lou worked as a freelance book indexer, mainly for one particular publisher on the mainland. “They are happy to shift my workload around a bit so I can take the time off.”

  “So that means…?” Undine gasped excitedly.

  “There are conditions.”

  “Yes. Yes. I’ll take schoolwork with me. I’ll pass my exams with flying colors, whatever that means.”

  Lou was stern. “No magic. Not you. Not Prospero.”

  “Oh, Lou, I promise. Thank you, thank you.” Undine threw her arms around Lou.

  “Undine, I mean it. No matter what he says. He can be very persuasive.”

  “Lou, honestly, I don’t even want to use the magic. After what happened last year, when Trout nearly…I nearly lost everyone. Prospero understands why I want to wait.” Undine hesitated. She thought of the pictures she had seen of Greece, white rocky islands surrounded by impossibly blue sea. The magic—her magic—was tied to the sea somehow, or at least to the bay where Prospero had lived. She remembered what it had been like the first time she’d seen the sea, how the noise of it had filled her. She wondered if she would be strong enough to keep her promise to Lou when surrounded by all that blue.

  “Lou,” Undine said, gently but firmly, and she was addressing herself as well, “I have already made a promise to you—no magic till I finish school, and then we’ll explore it together. We promised each other. And I meant it—here or in Greece—no magic.”

  Lou raised an eyebrow; was she unconvinced? But she went on. “It occurs to me that we should ask someone to look after the house. Perhaps one of the Montmorency boys?”

  Undine could see that Lou didn’t want Undine to over-enthuse. Excitement simmered inside her, but she kept it in check. Until they were actually on the plane, it wouldn’t do to annoy Lou in any way.

  “Trout?” she asked. It would be a fantastic gift for him. He’d love it, a house to himself for four weeks. It might, Undine dared to think, fix things between them, just a little.

  Lou frowned. “I was thinking the oldest one. You know, what’s his name? The one you…”

  “Don�
��t say it,” moaned Undine. “You can’t ask him.”

  Undine was still embarrassed when she thought of Trout’s oldest brother, Richard, who she’d kissed, and more…almost a lot more. It hadn’t really meant anything—to her or to Richard, but it had to Trout. He had seen them kissing, and she knew it was still painful for him to think about Undine and Richard together.

  “Please. Not Richard. Can’t we ask Trout?”

  “All right. I was only half serious. Do you think Trout’s mother would let him? She keeps those boys tied pretty close to her apron strings, doesn’t she?”

  “But we can ask? You could talk to her….”

  “See if he wants to come for brunch. We can ask Trout first, together. If he’s keen, I’ll talk to his mum.”

  Lazily, Undine climbed up to her room and looked from her window into Trout’s. They had often communicated like this in the past, through arm waving and a complex language of signaling they had devised when still in primary school.

  He was there, sitting right by the window. She waved at him to get his attention, but he didn’t look up. Well. Signals were only good if whoever you were signaling was watching. She opened the French window and stepped out onto the balcony. The day was damp and cold; it seeped into her skin as soon as it made contact.

  “Hey!” Undine yelled unceremoniously. “Trout!”

  He looked up. She waved to him, beckoning him. “Pancakes!” she shouted. He looked kind of annoyed, but who can pass up pancakes? He hesitated, then nodded brusquely.

  Trout climbed the concrete steps slowly, his sleep-deprived body aching. Each step seemed an immense effort, his own body too burdensome a weight to heave upward. Gravity fought him. Gravity sucks, thought Trout, and smiled despite himself at his inadvertent pun.

  Undine met him at the front door. He wanted to share his stupid joke with her, but she was running on nervous energy, jumpy and too eager, and it made him clam up. Lou and Jasper were making pancakes in the kitchen.