Shallow Breath (28 page)
D
esi moves forward and slips silently into the sea as soon as the police van begins to move, watching it join a procession of others, sirens blazing, racing around the harbour front in the direction of Dolphin Resort.
The water around her is rancid and grey, contaminated by the boats coming in and out. As she descends and swims the short distance to the dolphin pens, she considers how much the creatures have already been poisoned by their surroundings, forced to swim round in endless circles amid all this pollution. She has had to endure the noise of their frantic splashing and whistling as she waited these past few hours in the dark. Now, beneath the surface, each distinctive note of distress drills its way through her, leaving her body haunted and cold.
As soon as she spots the ropes, she becomes aware of movement. There is lots of activity here, grey and white bodies streaking past, hounded by unseen forces. In other
circumstances, she would be mesmerised. Now there is no time for anything except her mission.
The equipment they have given her is good. The ropes are easier to cut than she expected, and the early morning light filters through to help her. One by one, she pulls the barriers apart.
The false killer whales and pantropical spotted dolphins are quick to get through the gaps she has made. She is elated as they disappear. The Pacific white-sided dolphins don’t go immediately, but they are alert, swimming around the pen as though debating the risk. However, the Risso’s dolphins worry her. They stay away from the holes. In the end, she decides to go to them.
As she swims across, they barely stir. She gets closer and closer until she is practically part of their huddle. Their small eyes never leave her. ‘Trust me,’ she urges them mentally, wishing she could transmit her intentions. ‘Go. Please, go.’
But neither of them move. In the next pen, the Pacific white-sided pair have disappeared. Perhaps these two are irreversibly traumatised, she decides sadly, resigning herself. If all the others have gone, at least the fishermen will take some care with them, since they will be the only valuable animals left.
She swims towards the opening she has made. As she goes through, it takes her a moment to realise she has lost momentum. She redoubles her efforts, but her finning is no longer moving her forward.
She is stuck.
What would you change?
The question clings to her like a parasite as she drops her
tank to free herself. It grips on through her desperate ascent, hitches a ride as she swims frantically, and chases her over the rocks. As the men close in on her, she tries to respond, propelling her mind faster and faster, charting the course of her life in reverse. She goes deep into her childhood, as far back as she can remember, but finds nothing of interest. She changes direction, winding the reel forward now, closing in, surely, on the answer she is seeking. But nothing she touches on seems quite right. Her past sinks away from her like scattered stones. It is pointless to drown in a tide of unalterable regret.
Only as she is pushed onto the bottom of a rocking boat, and an angry man screams in her face, does something shift.
It isn’t a question, after all. She wasn’t searching for an answer, but a memory.
They are lying on the deck, watching the wind toying with a few wisps of cloud.
‘If you could alter one thing about the world,’ Connor begins, ‘what would you change?’
‘I’d get rid of evil,’ she replies without hesitation.
To her surprise, Connor laughs. ‘I don’t believe in evil. It’s not a supernatural power. Don’t ever call anyone evil – the ignorant don’t deserve that kind of status.’
‘You don’t believe in evil at all?’ she asks in surprise.
‘No, I believe in goodness. Evil, on the other hand, is an absolute lack of goodness, and it’s so shocking when we see it that we’ve given it a name, and made it into something powerful. But it’s a negative. It’s empty. It’s nothing.’
‘So what would you change about the world, then, Mr Know-It-All?’
Connor sits up, and she can sense his excitement. ‘I’d change the nature of memory. I’d make it so we could remember everything, not just the edited highlights. Right back to when we were babies – before we had any tools at our disposal, particularly language – before we learnt absolutely anything about the world. Imagine if we could recall everything from our time in the womb onwards. If we didn’t forget so much of the past, perhaps we wouldn’t even need to change the future.’
‘Do you want to change the future?’
He laughs. ‘Only if it isn’t with you.’
She is struck across the cheek with something hard, and it returns her to herself. As she is hit again, she cries out and tries to speak, but they will never understand. There is blood in her mouth as they clutch and scream at her. If she could find the right words to explain, would it make any difference? If she could level with them, would they see beneath her skin?
She rolls onto her side and coughs, splattering red onto the deck. She sees a gap in the boat’s rails and tries to shimmy towards it, but she is quickly roped to the side. She is theirs now. Theirs to determine what happens next.
As the boat turns towards the harbour, she glimpses the horizon. The early morning sun is untethered from the night, floating towards the sky. Specks of dancing light begin to catch the water, and it looks for all the world as though the stars have fallen to the sea.
‘D
on’t panic,’ Jackson hisses in Maya’s ear. ‘Just come with me.’
He pulls her into the darkness of the forest, her bare feet stinging as she steps on needle-sharp branches and rocks. He doesn’t release her until they are completely hidden.
‘Get dressed, quickly,’ he whispers, pulling things out of a bag.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Maya, there’s no time to explain. If you want to escape, you need to do what I say.’
Bewildered, she lets him help her out of her wetsuit. He takes it away as she changes into her clothes, and she sees him hide it behind the rocks.
‘Right, follow me,’ he says, ‘and keep up.’
They set off in the grey light, through the tall, crowded tree trunks. As she runs, she’s glad he’s brought her shoes as her painful feet wouldn’t have coped. She hurries after him,
eyes fixed on the bag slung over his shoulder, bouncing up and down. He glances behind regularly to make sure she’s still close.
They eventually reach a white car hidden in a thicket of trees.
‘Get in the back and keep your head down,’ Jackson says.
Once they are inside, he puts on a baseball cap before he starts the car.
‘Jackson –’
‘Not yet,’ he says. ‘Don’t talk yet. Just keep down.’
She lies on the seat, the vinyl sticking to her cheek. As they set off, she can still smell the sea in her hair. At first, the car jolts slowly over rough terrain, but then she hears the indicator, and as the road becomes smooth they speed up. From her position she can make out Jackson’s profile between the gaps in the seats, his expression solemn as he stares unflinchingly ahead.
‘Jackson, where are we going?’ she hisses, after what seems like an hour but is probably far less.
‘Osaka. You’re booked on a flight in ten hours. Let’s pray we get there as I can’t read any of these bloody road signs.’
‘
I’m
booked on a flight? What about you, Jackson? Where the hell are the others?’
He doesn’t answer for a moment. ‘They’re not coming.’
She sits upright in shock. ‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘Get down!’ he hisses. And when she has ducked out of view again, he says, ‘They never intended to come back.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Kate explained it all to me. If they just save a few dolphins, the show is over quickly and there’s not much of a fuss. But if they get caught, the judicial process will keep attention fixed on Taiji for weeks, probably months, possibly years. And that’s what they need most of all – to focus everyone’s attention on what’s happening. The real danger is when people start to forget.’
‘What about Mum?’
‘I think Desi’s resigned to a similar fate.’
‘But I thought you were going with her?’
Jackson keeps his eyes on the road. ‘We had to make a choice. If I’d gone with her, I couldn’t have got you.’
‘Jackson! We have to go back! Why wasn’t I told about this part of the plan?’
‘You weren’t told because everyone agrees that there’s no need for you to experience a Japanese jail. And they all knew that you wouldn’t desert them, if you were given the choice. We don’t think they’ll be looking for you now they have the others. They won’t realise there was anyone else involved – at least not straight away. I’ll go and find out what’s happened when you’re safely on a plane. No arguments – I promised Des I’d do this, and I intend to keep my word.’
‘What about my passport?’
‘Kate packed up everything for you. We’re not stopping until we get there.’
Much of the rest of the journey passes in a blur of tears. When they get closer to the city, Jackson hands her a map, and she keeps her mind occupied trying to decipher the route. Only once they spot the airport signs do they begin to talk again.
‘Won’t you get in trouble, when you go back?’
‘I don’t know. Hopefully not.’
‘If you see them, will you tell them …’ She pauses, trying to figure out what she wants to say. ‘Will you tell them thank you?’
‘I promise.’
‘And will you let me know how many dolphins got away? God, I pray they all got away. That we didn’t do this for nothing.’
‘Whatever happens, Maya, it wasn’t for nothing,’ Jackson replies.
When they pull up outside the terminal, he grabs the bag
from the rear seat. ‘It’s probably best I don’t come in with you. Everything you need is in there. I’d go and freshen up a bit before you approach the desk if I were you.’
‘Okay, thanks,’ she says, taking the bag.
‘I think your mum and Kate both put things in there for you,’ he says as he hugs her. ‘Call Pete when you’re home, okay? Tell him what’s happened. He’ll look out for you. I won’t leave until I’m sure you’re safely on the plane. I’ll park, then come and watch you from a distance until you go through to board.’
Maya gets out quickly. It’s all she can do not to race after the car as it drives off. Instead, she hurries inside the terminal and follows the directions to the bathrooms. She washes herself and brushes her hair, and then walks briskly towards the check-in line. She wants to get this over with as fast as possible.
As she goes through the gate, she is a bundle of nerves, but the officials are polite and pleasant. She keeps her eyes on the doorways in the departure lounge, half-expecting uniformed officers to appear. But there is nothing.
She has to breathe heavily to stifle her sobs as she boards the plane, shielding her emotions for those she is leaving behind. Those who loved her enough to ensure her freedom. Not until the plane has taken off, flying away from the sprawling city at sunset, does she hunt in the bag to find what Desi and Kate have left for her.
She discovers a plastic bag and opens it up. Inside is a small, brown, wooden elephant. ‘Take good care of her for me,’ says the note. ‘Her name is Mwana.’ Then she spots her mother’s handwriting on hotel stationery. She has written two words: ‘No regrets.’ A black outline drawing above it shows a smiling dolphin leaping high over the letters.
Maya looks out of the plane window again, but they have travelled too high to see anything except a darkening bed of
cloud. As they soar through the sky, she watches the light fade until her view is the same colour she had swum through twelve hours earlier. And while her body flies, her mind returns to the depths of the ocean, to where it all began.