Shallow Breath (7 page)

12

Jackson

A
s they approach the dive site, Jackson is ready. He watches the waves pounding a small island, dangerously close to the place they are about to jump in.

‘Now! Now!’

He rolls backward off the small inflatable and hits the thrashing, foaming water. His instructions are to get to the bottom as quickly as possible – too long at the surface and the waves will sweep him off to batter him against the rocks. So he swiftly lets the air out of his BCD and begins the twenty-metre descent.

This is not an easy dive – as soon as he’s under the water, the current snatches him and he is swept helplessly back and forth. When he reaches the bottom, he grabs hold of a sharp rock, glad of his thick neoprene gloves. Then he searches for Sebastian. His dive buddy is already down and holding on against the fierce pull, about five metres away, legs flying out behind him. The visibility is so bad that Jackson can barely see
him. The swirling current has swept millions of particles into the water, which surround them as a hazy white soup.

Sebastian waves Jackson closer, and Jackson lets go. The water carries him to Sebastian in seconds, and is keen to drag him further, but Jackson clutches onto another pillar of rock.

Then they wait.

They have come down here to see hammerhead sharks. Jackson’s whole attention should be focused on that, but instead he is fuming. His head is throbbing, his mouth is dry and uncomfortable, and his teeth are clenched around the plastic mouthpiece of the regulator. He’s glad Ian isn’t down here. He would have been tempted to swim up behind him and play with his air supply, just to give him a fright.

All week, Jackson hasn’t put a foot wrong. They have finished the research dives, so surely he is allowed to take a breather? Last night it was Sebastian who had offered him bottle after bottle. Who cared that Jackson had slept on the deck instead of his bed? He’d been groggy but capable this morning, and he didn’t need Ian’s reproving voice asking him whether he thought he was fit to dive. He was always fit to dive.

Ahead of him, Sebastian lets go of the ledge, flies another few metres, and gestures again for Jackson to join him. Jackson releases his grip, hurtling through the water so quickly that he can’t catch hold of the rock he wants. He grabs another ledge, grips on tight against the greedy suck of the sea. Near his fingers, a small red crab scuttles quickly out of sight.

He has travelled so far that now he can barely see Sebastian. There aren’t many places with enough room for both of them, and they are forced to play the same game over and over, letting the current carry them off and then reaching for handholds, trying to stay close. Finally, they find a spot where they can wedge themselves in, and wait.

As Jackson scans the seabed, he imagines Kate down here with him. She is the most effortless diver he has seen; he’s sure she would be in her element here. She wouldn’t be bullied by the current; she would manage to appear graceful as the sea toyed with her. He has checked his email every night, hoping for word from her, but there has been nothing. He is beginning to fear he won’t ever hear from her again.

He shouldn’t be brooding about this now, but there isn’t much else to do. Except for smaller fish, the sea is empty. This is the last dive of the trip, and so far it’s a huge disappointment.

Then out of the gloom a parade of golden cow rays appear, their flat bodies gliding only centimetres above Sebastian’s head, their long, spiny tails trailing behind them. Sebastian hasn’t noticed, so Jackson waves to get his attention and then points upwards. Sebastian looks up, and Jackson watches as he gently reaches to stroke one of the largest rays while they hover above him. Their wide fins flap hard like wings, but the current is so strong they are not moving far. All around them, flotillas of fish are caught up in the same momentum, swaying violently back and forth, at the mercy of the relentless push-pull of water.

A sea lion shoots into view from nowhere, and the fish are supercharged by fear, conquering the current and parting instantly to allow him passage. The animal disappears in an instant, obviously on a mission, leaving Jackson deflated. He has snorkelled with other sea lions in the late afternoons when work is over, and their company is energising. On land, they are snoring, farting, groaning hunks of hairy brown blubber that laze in tightly packed rows along the sand; but in the sea they are lightning-fast acrobatic show-offs, dancing around him, synchronising their movements with his. He has been inspected or greeted by a few of them, who dared swim close enough to eyeball him through his mask. When they dart off, Jackson
always struggles to follow, slow and clumsy in their wake.

Ian had snorkelled with the sea lions too, and Jackson found it hard to witness his limited movements. Only a few years ago, Ian was always first to a whale shark’s head, and the last one to fall away. Then eighteen months ago, while driving home, he had swerved to avoid a motorbike and crashed into a lamppost, crushing his right leg. According to his medical team, his recovery had been remarkable, but while snorkelling he had struggled, and had to be supported up the steps onto the boat.

Thinking of it, Jackson is ashamed of his anger, especially when he knows Ian would love to be down here with him. No wonder Ian is cautious about safety, knowing how quickly things can change.

Jackson decides to go to his knees on the seabed while they wait, and peers down to check the rocks below. He is about to brush against them when the rock suddenly moves. A stone scorpionfish snaps at something and then shuts its mouth, instantly re-establishing its mottled camouflage. Alarmed at the danger, Jackson lets go of the rock and finds himself flying backward again, scrabbling for something to cling to. He grabs at a pinnacle, firms his grip and recovers his breathing, but now Sebastian is nowhere to be seen. Jackson can do nothing but wait – he knows he cannot fight the current to go and find him.

A moment later Sebastian joins him. Jackson can see the frown behind his mask, as he checks again if Jackson is okay. But Jackson doesn’t even have time to reply before Sebastian’s eyes widen and he points frantically over Jackson’s shoulder.

He looks around. Less than five metres from them, two huge hammerhead sharks have appeared, gliding towards them. Soon they are barely an arm’s length away, cruising slowly, fin tips extended like blades. Jackson finds himself studying the single
black eyes visible on the sides of their strange, flat, scalloped heads. They are sizing him up.

Awestruck, Jackson stares back. He is the intruder here, and he won’t disrespect a predator’s domain. The sharks keep moving, scanning the water as they go, a pair of powerful princes surveying their kingdom. Jackson is riveted until the tips of their tails disappear. Now they are out of sight, but still so close. What else might be watching them beyond the edge of their vision?

Beside him, Sebastian picks up Jackson’s air gauge and taps on it to draw his attention. Jackson is shocked to see he’s only got 30 bar of air left – to be safe he should have told Sebastian when he reached fifty. He can’t believe he’s used so much so quickly.

Sebastian signals rapidly with his thumb. They have to go up, now.

Jackson depresses a button and hears air shoot into his jacket. They ascend to the five-metre mark, where they both hover in the blue, waiting to complete their safety stop. Having recently seen two big sharks, it is disconcerting to be surrounded by an aquamarine haze. Nevertheless, Jackson’s adrenaline is still buzzing from the first encounter, and he’s greedy for more.

But nothing happens. After five minutes is up, Jackson follows Sebastian’s lead, and they kick upwards.

Despite the current, there had been a certain calmness below the water, but as soon as Jackson puts his head above the surface it is chaos. The waves are remorseless. The small inflatable pitches and tosses above them, with those inside gesturing impatiently, keen to get away from the dangers of the rocks. Jackson grabs onto a rope and passes up his weight belt, then throws his fins in. He is about to haul himself up over the side, when someone shouts, ‘Where’s Sebastian?’

The men are holding tight to the rolling boat, leaning over, waiting for an answer. Panicking, Jackson puts his face back underwater, but he can’t see anything.

He comes up again. ‘He was here …’ Jackson is turning in frantic circles. ‘We did the safety stop together …’

Then he sees Sebastian face down in the water. He is about to charge across, when Sebastian looks up, grinning.

‘There is a huge shark right beneath your feet,’ he says.

Jackson immediately puts his face into the gloom, just in time to see a tail almost as long as his leg thrashing close by, before moving beyond sight.

‘And you dropped this,’ Sebastian adds, handing over a fin that Jackson hadn’t seen fall. ‘The hammerhead caught it, gave it back to me,’ he says jovially. Then he turns towards the boat and shouts something in Spanish, and the other men laugh.

‘How was it?’ Ian asks when he finds Jackson in the cabin. The boat is on the move again, and Jackson is looking out the window, watching the sporadic bursts of foam being flung into the air as they speed along.

‘Good,’ Jackson smiles, but Sebastian shakes his head.

‘No, it wasn’t. Last year – even a few months ago – there was so much more. Every year the same – every year a little less. There used to be schools of hammerheads here, not one or two. It is the illegal fishermen – they take, take, take.’ He goes over to a shelf and grabs a thick book of photographs. ‘These are all from the same site, only a few years ago.’

Jackson flicks through, amazed at the pictures, dismayed at everything he didn’t see. There are photos shot upwards showing dozens if not hundreds of hammerheads, silhouetted
in a pale-blue cylinder of light. He knows the data: that even here, in one of the most hallowed wildlife spots the world has left, they are finding pirate boats every week, piled high with illegal cargoes of shark fins. However, this is the first time he has seen the catastrophic effects for himself.

‘There will be nothing down there in a few years,’ Sebastian says, leaning back in resignation, hands behind his head. ‘It will be a graveyard. The sea floor will be a carpet of bones, and hardly anyone will care.’

Ian takes the book of photographs and begins to browse through. ‘If you take the king of the food chain and kill him off,’ he says, ‘the ripples are too great. We all rely on the ocean, one way or another. Sooner or later, everyone will have to care.’

No one says anything. Sebastian gets up. ‘I think I need a beer. Who else?’

Ian doesn’t look at Jackson. He doesn’t have to.

‘Not for me, thanks,’ Jackson says, wishing Ian would go away. He hates the apocalyptic talk that seems to go hand in hand with his job nowadays. The scale of it is too depressing to think about.

His hands, denied a bottle to play with, are eager for something to do. He goes to get his laptop and checks his email again. There has been no word from anyone yet, and his sister must be the only woman in the world without an email address. He is about to send Pete a message asking how Desi and Maya are when his eyes double back to an address he had skipped over, not recognising its significance.

He clicks on it, a nervous burn beginning in his stomach.

He’s momentarily confused. It sounds like a response to a conversation he doesn’t remember having. As he reads the reply, he sees more written underneath, and before he has even skimmed it he has understood, with crippling mortification, that he has just filled in some of the blank period of his binge a week ago. As he scrolls down, he cringes at what he might have written.

He sounds like a desperate schoolkid, while her reply is disconcertingly cool and composed, but it could have been a lot worse. He thanks god for his lack of typing skills, as this short piece probably took him fifteen minutes. If his fingers could have kept up with his brain, no doubt there would have been more of a drunken ramble. Because every time he has spotted something special – and here that has been every few minutes – he has found himself wanting to tell Kate.

Ian has disappeared from the cabin, so Jackson goes over and grabs a bottle while he thinks about his response. Soon he has three empties next to him, and he’s pleasantly blissed out by the wooze in his brain and the extra thrum in his blood. He begins composing a series of replies, which range from daggy to desperate, and erases all of them. Frustrated, he goes to his folders and searches through his photos instead, until he finds one of his favourites of Kate. He only has a few, and this is a portrait shot of her taken while they were on a break between boat dives – her slim brown face and beautiful smile, a scuba mask pushed up onto her forehead, and the endless azure water behind her.