Breathing Underwater by Julia Green Read Free Book Online Page A

hair is plastered to her head, sodden, and yet she’s still beautiful, radiant. Matt sees it, and so does everyone else.
    â€˜Camping in the rain again,’ someone says. ‘Oh joy.’
    â€˜It’ll blow out by morning,’ Dave says. ‘Tomorrow will be fine.’
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    I don’t go to the pub with everyone. I come straight home, peel off the waterproofs – which aren’t – and the layers of wet clothes underneath and get warm in the bath. Rain’s still battering the window when I’m lying in bed. I think about the tents in the field, the sound of rain drumming on nylon, the damp seeping up from the grass. I imagine Izzy and Matt curled round each other in their nest of duvet and blankets. I’m almost asleep, half dreaming.
    Am I asleep? In my muddled dream-thoughts, Joe is outside in the wind and the rain. Not a spirit Joe, but a real flesh and blood Joe, cold and wet and alone. And it’s my fault. Why don’t I do something? I need to find someone to help. I need to call him back. I’m caught in a nightmare maze and every turning takes me further away from where I want to be. I’m hotter and hotter and something tight is winding round my chest, smothering me.
    I wake with a start, my heart thrumming under my ribs. I’m bound tight by the twisted sheet. Outside, the wind is shrieking, pulling at the window latch, trying to get in. I untangle the sheet and sit up. It’s just after midnight. I’m so thirsty. I make my way downstairs. The light’s still on.
    Evie’s reading on the sofa. She looks up. ‘Freya! You look hot! What’s up?’
    I ease myself next to her so she can feel my forehead. I’m shivering now, my feet freezing. She tucks me under the garden rug, next to her.
    â€˜I was dreaming,’ I say. ‘And the wind woke me.’
    â€˜It makes such a strange noise, sometimes,’ Evie says. ‘Like it’s moaning. It sounds almost human, doesn’t it? I was wide awake too. So I came back downstairs to read. I don’t like to disturb your gramps. He’s terrible if he doesn’t get enough sleep.’
    Evie strokes my hair back from my face. ‘Perhaps you’ve got a temperature. You caught a chill, maybe, from the boat. I’ll get you some water. You stay there.’
    She gets me a drink, and makes tea for herself, and I listen to the sounds from the kitchen of the tap running, and the kettle going on, and her feet padding round on the tiles, the chink of the cup on the table. I start to feel safe again. It’s like being very little, when someone else is looking after you and you don’t have to think or do anything for yourself. It hasn’t been like that for me for a long time.
    When Evie comes back she tucks the blanket round me again. She sort of pats me, and we sit together in the circle of light from the lamp on the side table, and we don’t say anything. Evie finishes her tea.
    â€˜You’re missing Joe,’ she says at last. ‘Of course you are.’
    I look at her. She’s lost in her own thoughts. There are tears on her cheeks. It’s a comfort, sitting together like that, without having to say anything.
    I don’t even remember going back up to bed, but I must have, because that’s where I am, next thing, and it’s the morning: bright sunlight is flooding through the window and my phone says 11.06.

Ten
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    â€˜It’s a swimming day!’ I tell Evie in the kitchen.
    â€˜How are you, this morning?’
    â€˜Completely better.’ I give Evie a hug. ‘The sun makes everything seem OK.’
    â€˜Why don’t we take a picnic, have a swim and go over to Gara? The three of us, together. Go and tell Gramps. He’s in the garden.’
    I find him up by the hives, at the far end of the garden, reciting lines from some poem to the bees. He often does that. He says it calms them down.
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