The Art of Breathing Underwater

Chapter 25

My mum stood in the hall, speaking into the receiver when I opened the front door. "... Ah, here he is, Robbie, I'll put him on to you." She passed me the phone, hovering for a moment with a cheerful smile.

I yawned, shattered from work. And the emotional roller-coaster of a day I'd just had. "Yeah?"

"It's me."

"I gathered as much."

"You mad?"

"I'm tired."

Robbie went straight to telling me he'd heard about a new film called Heat. De Niro and Pacino, on-screen together for the first time since the second Godfather flick. "Oh yeah, almost forgot—you're going to love this. Bowie's playing the Point Depot this November."

For a fleeting moment, I forgot how pissed off I was.

"We've got to be there, right? I mean, Bowie. You worship the thin white duke." A dig? My tired mind playing tricks on me?

"That's ages away. We don't know where we'll be by then." Two can do the passive-aggressive tango.

"I know where I won't be—that poxy school. I'm ringing them tomorrow, make it official."

"Ain't you the lucky bastard." He caught the sarcasm in my tone and wanted an explanation. So, I told him the latest.

"Oh. Sorry. I had no clue Roley's ma worked there."

"Don't take Einstein to figure it wasn't the cleverest move getting those photos developed in my local pharmacy?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on a minute, whose idea was it to go all Playboy centrefold?"

"That's your excuse."

"I'm not the one constantly making excuses."

"I..."

"Listen, Aaron, you've got issues." I was getting pretty tired of hearing people tell me this. "You need to figure out what you want—"

"What I want is to hit the sack. I'm knackered."

"I guess, there's nothing more to say."

"Nope." There was a brief empty silence before the receiver clicked. I took the phone from my ear and replaced it in the cradle.

I didn't feel anything. Not anger. Nor sadness. Nothing.

When I got upstairs, Johnny was watching The Prisoner. A sci-fi series about a retired secret agent held captive in an innocuous-looking village from which there is no escape. His captors use various means to extract the secrets he holds, whilst endeavouring to make him assimilate with the others in the village.

After the show ended, I got to listen to my brother blather on at length about his latest girlfriend. Pausing on occasion, to recommend I find myself a woman. Or to grin goofily after mentioning his new love's name, or the cute scar on her chin from a bicycle accident, or how she adored Hal Hartley movies, and chilli burgers, and listening to Massive Attack. The rhapsodizing continued until he polished off the final beer and passed out.

I envied him that. Sleep. My body ached to lie in Hypnos' dark, poppy-lined cave. To float along the river of forgetfulness. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, I could not shut off the torrent of thoughts sluicing through my mind.

I attempted to transfer these abstractions to the page, but my brain refused to provide the pen with words to write. I guess I had drained every drop of inspiration concocting that cover story earlier in the afternoon.

And energy, too. I ignored my swelling bladder because just contemplating getting out of bed and going downstairs was exhausting.

I had never experienced tiredness like this. Not even after the ten-kilometre slog, we did cross-country each week on sports day. No, this was something else entirely. A culmination of years spent swimming against the current, that effort expended trying to maintain my head above water. The weight of secrets dragging me under, the pressure of being pressing me down.

I needed to come up for air.

To breathe freely.