Underwater

by Ivy Bannister - Dublin (Moore Gold Medal Award Short Story 2004)

When I dive into the pool, it's like slicing into another world, a dream world where everything is perfect. I love drifting along the bottom, deep in the blueness, watching my breath bubble to the top.
I can hold my breath for a long time.

It is Friday morning, early. My Dad’s bright footsteps fly downstairs, clickety-clack, a tumble of marbles. Dad gets up early because of his car. It's a sports car, red like a fire-engine, and fast; and he leaves the house at 6:30 AM for a traffic-free run into town. ‘A luxury,’ he says. ‘A man's got to have one luxury in life.’ I hear the front door slam. The engine revs beneath my window. In my head, I watch him whoosh away in a metallic blur. His happy smile hangs for a moment in the air, then vanishes.
Without Dad, the house settles into quiet darkness, and I doze until my alarm goes off, then I get myself dressed. The bathroom smells of Dad’s aftershave. The black scrapings of his stubble speckle the sink. I wash them away, then splash water onto my face and think about swimming. I can do the length of the pool underwater on one breath alone. My plan is to try harder, to stretch myself and make it two lengths.
A note waits on the kitchen table. ‘Loosen up, Timbo! You're only young once!’ it says. I fold it and tuck it into the pocket of my blazer. I like the way that Dad leaves me notes, and sometimes chocolate, all over the house.
It is only when I’m putting my bowel into the dishwasher that I notice the buzz from the telly. I tiptoe into the sitting room, where Mum is asleep on the sofa, her dark hair shining against her cheek. She stirs a little, and the quilt slips away from her arm and shoulder. When I switch off the telly, an eye opens. ‘Timmy,’ she whispers. ‘How are you, Timmy?’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’m fine.’ She takes my hand and squeezes it. Her fingers are soft and warm, and a vein throbs on her white-blue wrist. A nice smell hangs about her, a slightly sweaty smell of sleep and dreams.
‘Have you made your lunch?’ she asks.
‘Yeah.’
‘A sandwich and fruit? A carrot?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s a good boy then.’ She tugs me down to kiss my cheek. When she lets go, she falls right back into her sleep.

I can still feel the warmth of her lips as I turn towards school. ‘Make something of yourself, Timmy,’ she always says. Mum has shown me the hospital where she used to work. Her job was testing bloods. She left off working after I was born. ‘I love you so much,’ she says. ‘How could I have let a stranger mind you?’
Dad runs a company that sells and fixes computers. I wasn't meant to be an only child. But after me, there were twins who died before they were born, and since then, nothing. Sometimes, when I’m underwater, I picture a brother swimming beside me, grinning like a monkey and copying my every move.
At school, I head right for the lockers, so I'm in my seat when the first bell goes. But when I reach into my schoolbag for my biology copy, my hand comes out smeared in ink. Simon and Danny are sniggering behind me, so I know it’s them. They’ve been snapping my cartridges. Simon and Danny hate me on account of my swimming medals. They hate me because the teachers like me, because I'm good at books like Mum, even though it was Dad who taught me reading, long before kids are supposed to be up to it.
‘I didn't mean to,’ Dad says. ‘It just happened.’ I remember snuggling up with him, while he read his books out loud: thrillers mostly, and war stories. One day, the words seemed to fly right off the page into my head. It was magic, only magic, which might be why I’ve never read a kid’s book in my life, except at school.

Most days I train when school is over, but since it’s Friday I go home, where I find Mum drinking coffee out of her favourite china cup. She sits on the kitchen stool with her back straight. Her hair is nicely styled, but her dark jacket makes her look paler than ever.
‘You want to go for a walk?’ I say.
She shakes her head like a video running slowly. Why is she so pale? Is it because she never goes out? Mum has her own manner of doing things. She spends ages folding the washing, getting rid of every wrinkle. The kitchen cupboards shine; and inside, each packet or tin occupies its own particular space. Dad is the opposite. He'll put anything anywhere, which drives Mum crazy; so when I see his stuff about, I put it away.
‘Come on, let’s go out,’ I say again.
‘No, but I’ll give you a game of chess.’ Mum likes my brain to keep busy. She plays a tough game, but eventually, I see an opening and take her queen. ‘You let me win,’ I complain.
‘Silly,’ she giggles. ‘You did it yourself, fair and square. Do you want a pizza?’

I eat in front of the television – pepperoni and pineapple – while she sips wine from a blue-stemmed glass. ‘I don't understand,’ she says suddenly. ‘Where is your father?’
‘It’s Friday, Mum.’ My voice sounds light and cheery. ‘You know he doesn’t come in until late on a Friday.’
‘I had forgotten.’ She examines her polished fingernails, flicks away some fluff, wraps her arm around my shoulders. Every so often, she says something about what we’re watching, then she tickles my neck. I love the touch of her fingertips against my skin. She makes me feel happy and warm and safe; and it's as good a way as any to pass an evening. Only at some stage, I fall asleep, because the next thing I know, Dad is standing in front of us, shifting from foot to foot.
‘Go on up to bed, Timbo,’ he says. I move fast, but not fast enough to miss the look on Mum’s face, and the flood of words that spew from her mouth. When Dad shouts back, the living room is a sea of insults, smashing against the walls and furniture.
Upstairs, I strip off my clothes and slip into bed, then in my head, I dive, and I'm gone, swimming away through the echoing blue, carried off by the cold, clean water. In my dreams, I can breathe underwater. I inhale through the nose, and blow out through my mouth, a boy-amphibian, a prodigy. The Amazing Timmy, Timbo the Great. In my dreams there is nothing I can’t do. In my dreams, I am God.

In the morning, Mum is asleep, so Dad drives me to the pool. He waits in the gallery reading his paper, while I work through my paces. After forty laps, I dive, swim a lap underwater, then turn and push back, almost half-way down the pool again, until my lungs are bursting, then up I fly for a great gasp of air.
‘Hey! Timbo!’ Dad is on his feet, looking anxious.
‘One lap and a half!’ I yell. ‘Best yet!’
Dad grins and gives me the thumbs-up. So I dive and do it again. My heart is thumping like crazy. Only a matter of time, I think. Only a matter of time before I can manage the full two laps underwater.
Afterwards, we go to the supermarket. I am loading beans, bread and biscuits into the trolley, when Dad comes back with a huge fish in his arms. ‘Salmon,’ he says. ‘It’s on special offer.’ The fish is enormous, as big as a baby. Dad holds it out and pinches its jaws open, so I see razor-sharp fish-teeth. ‘Grrrrr,’ he says. ‘Eating fish will make you swim faster.’
‘Really?’ I say.
Then Dad roars with laughter, and I laugh too, because when I’m with Dad, everything is funny.

At home, the salmon is stretched on the counter, a glitter of silver. A glassy eye stares at the ceiling. Mum slams into the kitchen, still in her dressing gown. ‘What the hell is that?’ she says, looking at the fish. She bangs open the cupboard, and pours herself a brandy. Dad looks at his watch. It is not yet lunch time.
‘You're not meant to drink,’ he says, ‘not with the tablets.’
‘I'll do what I like, and you won't stop me.’ As she jerks away from him, her arm bumps the wall, and the glass crashes, spattering drink and broken glass everywhere.
‘Serves you right,’ Dad says.
A crimson flush darkens Mum's pale face. Her eyes dart about the kitchen, then settle on the salmon. Mum, don’t, I think, but she grabs the fish and heaves it at Dad. He ducks, and the big fish slews into the door frame, then slides away, swimming down the hallway, leaving a trail of slime on the wooden floor. There’s mess everywhere: glass, drink and fish slime. ‘Clean it up,’ she says.
‘No way,’ Dad says.
So I drop to my knees, mopping with paper towels, but my hands are shaking. ‘Just look at what you’re doing to your own child,’ she says, pouring another drink. As she leaves the kitchen, she waves her glass under Dad's nose. I think about going after her, but Dad is on the floor now, picking up the glass with careful fingers. So we work steadily until the floor is done, until the salmon – wrapped in newspaper – has been put in the bin and everything glows with the usual cleanliness.
Dad clears his throat. ‘Well, Timbo, will we go for a drive?’
A drive?
‘Come on, kid,’ he drawls, ‘don’t gawk like a giraffe with two heads. You know what a drive is.’ I wonder, for a moment, about bringing Mum, but somehow, I feel certain that she wouldn’t come.

It’s bright and nippy, the kind of afternoon that I like. The sunshine sparkles on the sleek curves of the sports car. Dad turns into the nearby Industrial Estate. Most of it’s shut up for the weekend, so it's fairly deserted, and we zoom along at a lick. Then Dad pulls up and turns to me. ‘You want a lesson?’
‘What kind of a lesson?’
‘A driving lesson, Timbo, what else?’
I don't believe it. Here it is, Saturday afternoon, and my own father is asking me if I want to drive his car? So we swap seats, and I listen to Dad's instructions, my happy hands fluttering on the steering wheel. I ease out the clutch. The car jumps, then sputters to a halt. ‘Hey, this isn't Dodgems,’ Dad says, and we laugh like crazy. So I try again, and this time, I make it into a shaky first, and the car lurches forward, and I am twelve years old and driving a sports car, and I have never felt so wonderful in my entire life, not even in the swimming pool. I scrape into second gear, then third, and when Dad tells me to stop, there is no problem, because I am deadly and can do anything I want. The Amazing Timmy, Timbo the Great.
‘That was brilliant,’ I say. ‘Can I have another go?’
And I am waiting to hear, ‘You bet, Timbo. Go for it,’ but there's no answer, so I turn towards Dad. Who is sitting beside me, staring straight ahead, not looking at all like himself because he isn’t smiling. ‘I am going to leave your mother,’ he says.
I don’t hear, because my hands are on the wheel, and I don’t want to hear. So he says it again, and this time it registers, and it’s like I’ve driven into a wall. I open my mouth to yell, only nothing comes out. And Dad is still yapping. ‘You had better be listening, Tim, because this is important. I want you to choose to live with me.’
A gust of wind makes the car shudder. A can rattles across the road. The air seems full of rubbish, scraps of paper and plastic, whirling about. My fingers are like ice. I want Mum to warm them, but she is back in the house. If I hadn’t come out in the stupid car, I think, then nothing would have happened.
‘And Tim,’ my father says, ‘whatever you decide, I am going to fight for you. In court, if necessary, where the game is going to get bloody.’
Game? What does he mean, game? I look hard at my father. I want him to shut up, not to say one thing more. For who is going to look after Mum if I don't?
‘And Tim,’ he says. ‘This wouldn't be happening if I didn't love you. If I didn't think it was right for all of us.’ Incredibly, my father is bawling now, great, fat blobs of tears which flood his plump cheeks. Suddenly, I want to wrap my arms around his neck and tell him that everything will be OK. But I want to hit him too, as hard as I can. Instead I open the car door and jump out. I begin to walk. The horn beeps behind me. I hear the engine revving. I swerve out across the grass, where the car can't follow, and I begin to run. The cold wind ruffles my hair. I am heading for the pool. That's all I can think about: the freshness of the swimming pool. Slicing into the water, dropping down into the deep blue chill of it. Drifting underwater, watching the bubbles. Staying there, because as long as I’m down there, I won’t have to decide.