Copyright © 2009, Valerie Goldsilk
Published by Whiskey Creek Press LLC

Reviews For NEGATIVE BUOYANCY by Valerie Goldsilk

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The water was chilly and Madeleine LeMesurier thought her teeth would fall out any minute now, they had been chattering so hard and for so long.

“Now pay attention and get it right this time,” Major Roger Thursbey (Retired) was saying and threw a pointed look at her. She frowned at him, determined that she wouldn’t give in to his mental harassment. There were two others in the class and they’d all made the same elementary mistakes, although Madeleine felt the ex-military man was mainly picking on her.

He was a bald fellow with a blond moustache and the extended belly of a career soldier who’d spent the last decade of his service shuffling requisition forms and counting piles of grey blankets. In his skin-tight neoprene wetsuit he looked absurd—more so since it was bright yellow, a color which apparently made it easier for the students to see him underwater.

“Don’t fill the mask all the way with water. Partial mask clear is the skill we’re practicing. Tilt your head back slightly and blow the air out through your nose to displace the water through the lower part of the mask where it seals to your face. It’s not very difficult, people.”

He popped the rubber mouthpiece of the demand valve into his mouth, made the thumbs down signal, and releasing air from his buoyancy control device—BCD—he gradually began to subside below the surface. Madeleine and her fellow students repeated the signal back, then followed suit, although their descents to the bottom of the three-meter deep pool were less graceful than their instructor’s.

She felt trapped by the gear, as if someone had forced her into an extra large rucksack and tightened all the straps until they would go no further. Around her waist was a nylon belt from which hung numerous chunks of lead that Major Thursbey had made them thread on and off repeatedly as “it was a good drill.”

On her feet were a set of rubber fins that must have been left over from some Second World War frogmen battalion. Major Thursbey had caught her eyeing them up and said pointedly that they were rugged and the best for pool training. Whatever they were, they were a size too big and as she floundered about at the bottom of the pool trying to get into a kneeling position it seemed as if the right fin was just about to slip off.

Underwater, objects appear twenty-five percent larger so the Major’s demonic eyes glaring at her were more frightening than ever. Slow, deep, steady breaths, she told herself. She glanced up and saw a little boy in red swimming trunks thrashing about above her head.

This was the amazing part. Her head was two meters below the surface and she was breathing as if she were lying on a lounger by the side of the pool. It was their third lesson and initially it had been hard to trust the little rubber device in her mouth to deliver the necessary air for life support. But after a few attempts, trust began to build up and the air kept on whooshing into her throat every time she breathed in.

The Major was waving at them with his underwater clipboard—they called it a slate—and she tried to make out what he was on about. Her vision was restricted by the mask she wore so she had to move her head sideways and up and down to see what the others were doing. They appeared equally puzzled by the Major’s gestures. On Madeleine’s left was the Chinese girl Winnie; on the right was the overweight American Frankie.

Suddenly Thursbey lunged forward and began tapping Madeleine on her chest with his index finger. Well, that was clear enough! He wants me to do something, but which skill? They’d practiced three on the surface so in which order did he want them? The diving instructor stared hard into her eyes then ran his finger horizontally along the line of his eyes.

Madeleine nodded, then remembered that wasn’t the right thing to do underwater. You formed the “okay” sign by creating an O with index and thumb. Okay, she signaled Thursbey. Okay. I understand—I’m going to do it. Partial mask clear. Of course. They just talked about it but somehow it had slipped her mind in the ten seconds it took her to slip below the surface of the pool. It was all pretty exciting and Major Thursbey didn’t help much by behaving as if he were still on his beloved parade ground.

She took a couple of deep breaths and then pried the top of her mask away a few millimeters, allowing some water to seep into it. When the water level reached just below her eyes she looked up and blew air from her lungs through her nose while easing the bottom skirt of her mask away from her face. This pushed the water out and the mask was suddenly clear again.

Major Thursbey nodded grudgingly and shook her hand. Madeleine felt pleased. She’d got it perfectly right. And now it was Winnie’s turn.

Madeleine noted that Thursbey watched the lithe Chinese girl like a shark. She got the moves right but her exhalation wasn’t enough to clear all the water out of the bottom of the mask, so he made her do it again three times.

He was a hard task-master but they said he was one of the most conscientious—and expensive—diving instructors in Hong Kong. Madeleine hoped so, for she was trusting her life to his instruction and so money wasn’t the main object. What was an extra thousand Hong Kong Dollars when it came to getting excellent tuition? She just wished he’d be a bit more friendly and less military.

She shifted her position because she could feel a cramp coming on in one of her legs. Kneeling was the standard way for them to rest while performing the requisite skills that made up the mile-stones of the course. The air kept coming smoothly into her mouth which was a steady comfort, even though she knew with two fin kicks she could be on the surface gasping for real fresh air.

During the classroom training the Major had explained to them how a regulator worked and that it was “fail-safe.” If something went wrong it ended up giving continuous air, something they called a free-flow. He told them all his regulators were top quality and virtually new. They were Scubapro Mark 20’s with S550 second stages, he’d told them—not that it made a jot of difference to Madeleine. He could have been talking about a BMW 323i for all she knew about brand-names unrelated to fashion.

She picked up the pressure gauge dangling from a hose under her left arm and checked its reading. She’d used up half of the supply in the tank on her back in over half an hour’s shallow diving. That was supposed to be normal when one was a beginner.

Meanwhile Frankie Moretti was struggling with his mask clearing. First he couldn’t get enough water into the top of the mask, then he didn’t blow out enough air and as Major Thursbey kept on tapping his own head in the irritating gesture that meant “think, think” the corpulent American kept on trying and getting it wrong. Finally Thursbey told him to stop, by holding up his hand like a traffic policeman stopping cars at a junction.

Turning to Madeleine again, Thursbey took his regulator out of his mouth then put it back in again. She looked at him, puzzled for an instant. He nodded angrily and took his regulator out once more, pointing at the thing with his index finger. Madeleine then realized he was indicating for her to do the next skill—regulator removal. He wanted her to remove the regulator and hold her breath. Well, not actually hold her breath. You never did that underwater—while the regulator was out of your mouth you blew little bubbles of air until the rubber mouthpiece was back in your mouth and you could suck down another lung-full of dry, compressed air.

Madeleine hated this skill. She was only just getting used to the steady, deep breathing from the tank of air. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t natural to take the regulator out and stop breathing for twenty seconds.

But the dive instructor was insistent. He kept on pointing at her. Go, go. And finally she got up the courage. It wasn’t the first time she was doing this, nor would it be the last time. The Major didn’t believe in one-time lucky. He believed in repetition and getting it perfect. So Madeleine did the skill, amazed herself that it went well and that the instructor once again grudgingly shook her hand.

Ten minutes later, back on the surface, Major Thursbey was nearly complimentary. Except to Frankie Moretti.

“You’re just not getting it, Frankie. You’re not thinking. Pay attention. Look, listen, learn when I’m doing the demo. The girls can do it fine. Why can’t you?”

Frankie glowered at the yellow-clad instructor. The American’s mask was pushed up on his forehead. He began, “It’s not that easy, takes a while—”

“Mask around your neck, Frankie!” Thursbey interrupted him with a bellow. “Only amateur divers leave their mask on their head. Why don’t we let our mask sit on our forehead, Winnie?”

“Because it can get washed away by a sudden wave,” Winnie, the class swot said brightly.

“Okay, well done,” Thursbey said. “Now girls you can take a pee-break. Frankie, you and me’ll practice mask clearing and regulator recovery here in the shallow end until you’ve got it down to a T.”

“I’ve got a dinner appointment,” the American grumbled.

“Do you want to learn to dive or not?” Thursbey demanded, asking what to him was a rhetorical question. Nobody dropped out of any of his classes. It was a matter of pride.

Gratefully Madeleine and Winnie climbed out of their BCDs—big jackets that could be inflated or deflated by varying amounts at a press of a button. Attached to the back of each BC was a long aluminum tank that appeared to weigh a ton. Then they unclipped and lowered to the floor their weight belts which seemed to weigh half a ton, and took off their antique rubber fins. Then they helped each other out of their wet-suits, which had to be unzipped at the back.

Once out of earshot, Winnie said, “I don’t know why we put up with him.”
Madeleine smiled in agreement. Major Thursbey was an aquamarine bully in lemon livery. But she’d paid her money and she was going to finish the course and get out into the open sea where the corals and fish-life were supposed to be awesome.

After popping downstairs to the ladies, they flounced onto the plastic chairs by the pool and sipped from glasses of iced water. Now they were dry, the chill of the pool had worn off.
It was eight in the evening and the pool of the United Services Recreation Club in Kowloon was floodlit. The night had encroached while they were diving. The air was hot and humid and the chirping of crickets came from the surrounding vegetation. They were in the middle of the Kowloon peninsula, the mainland opposite Hong Kong island, and all around this oasis—which had originally been built for the sporting activities of British Army families—office buildings and residences towered over them. Meanwhile the British colonial masters had gone and the city had returned to the hegemony of China. But the foreigners were still there making money, dealing with China, enjoying the cosmopolitan feel of this oriental town with its strange occidental history.

“What is it you do again, Winnie?” Madeleine asked. She’d turned up late for the first classroom session so had missed the introductions. Thursbey had not been amused and made her sign a document called “commitment to training goals” to remind Madeleine how seriously she should be taking his teaching.

“I’m with the police. I work in Kowloon Headquarters as an inspector taking care of traffic reports.”

“That sounds like a fascinating career,” Madeleine commented. The Chinese girl smiled politely. Her English was excellent without a hint of an American or traditional British accent so Madeleine assumed she’d attended one of the top local universities.

“It’s okay. It’s been mostly administration so far. This is about the most exciting thing I’ve done for ages.”

“Didn’t they teach you how to shoot and march and arrest criminals at the training school?” Madeleine asked.

“Oh yes, but that was just all theory. We did lots of marching and a bit of shooting but after we graduated they didn’t allow us to carry a gun on duty.”

“That’s sexist.”

“It’s still an old-style police force. More so now that the British have gone and some Chinese traditions are creeping back.”

Madeleine smiled politely. She’d heard comments like this before. It was usually the old taxi drivers who enjoyed telling her that life had been better and freer in the old days before 1997. But there was no going back for the former colony. Its seven million inhabitants had to forge forward and make their own peace with the motherland of China.

Madeleine finished off her iced water as Winnie said, “And what about you? How long have you been in Hong Kong?”

“About three years. I came here traveling on the way to Australia and decided it was worth staying a bit longer.”

“And you still like Hong Kong?”

“Oh, it’s a great place. There’s nothing like it. Busy, dynamic, exciting. I’m having lots of fun.”

“And your job?” This was a standard Hong Kong question. Everyone wanted to know what you did for a living because it defined you, gave others a pigeon hole into which to place you. Madeleine smiled again. In a way they were in similar professions. “I work for a commercial investigations firm. You may know it—Renfrey & Associates?”

The Chinese girl nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard the name. Lots of former British inspectors from our police have gone to work there. Is it challenging?”

Madeleine shrugged. “It’s the same as your story. I know I could probably do a better job than most of the investigators in the company but I’m just an Admin Assistant so I do the filing and the typing and answer the calls and book flight tickets…”

Winnie returned a sisterly smile and then suddenly Major Thursbey was standing over them again and telling them to get ready for the next confined water session.

It took an hour and by this time Madeleine’s skin was rumpled as a prune. They packed the wet dive gear away in netted bags then humped them over to the instructor’s mini-van where he stowed them carefully for the next day’s session.

“Anyone for a small shandy in the bar?” he suggested, almost jovial, now that the work had been done.

Frankie Moretti was already on his mobile phone re-scheduling his dinner appointment, while Winnie shook her head and Madeleine also declined. Thursbey looked disappointed. Maybe he had ideas of spending another hour boring them to death over a beer with examples of how people could get injured by ignoring the decompression tables.

“By the way there’s a dive trip coming up for the club. I’ve been organizing it for a while,” he said as he locked the van’s back door. “We’re going to the Similan Islands and there are still a few vacancies. It’s advanced diving but we’ve got time to get you ready for that. Anyone interested better let me know and give me a check by the end of the week.”

Madeleine perked up. She’d heard about the Similans. They were near Phuket in Thailand and supposed to be absolutely stunning. She was due some holiday and, after all, this was what all the dive training was intended for—to get away from things for a while.

* * * *

By the time Madeleine arrived in P.J. Murphy’s Irish Bar it was ten to ten and judging from the redness of his cheeks, Clive McGruder had already downed a few pints before her arrival.

She pecked him on the flushed right cheek. He didn’t seem too pleased. “You’re late,” he said and reached for his gold packet of Benson & Hedges.

“I said ten-ish,” Madeleine replied, instantly on the defensive. What the hell’s his problem?

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Sort of.”

“I’ve already had something to eat,” he said casually. “What do you want to drink? Usual white wine?”

Madeleine nodded. She held back her irritation. He knew she’d be this late. At least he could have waited for her to arrive before eating. That was the whole point of meeting up in the pub. They had some nice homely dishes and a wicked blueberry cheese cake. She looked at the man sitting opposite her and wondered what she found attractive in him.

It certainly wasn’t his charming and endearing personality, although he could be very amusing when it suited. Alcohol brought out the worst part of him. And with each pint he threw down his throat he became more abrasive and a less pleasant companion.

The bubbly Nepalese waitress bounded over and took the drinks order. While she was at it Madeleine also ordered the steak and kidney pie and, feeling rebellious, announced that they’d better keep a cheese cake in the fridge for her because it was certainly a night for indulgence. She didn’t have a problem with weight. She’d always been athletic and her petite body seemed to burn off calories easily. There wasn’t any spare fat on her hips and thighs. She was grateful for this although some of her boyfriends had unkindly referred to her boyish figure and the lack of pendulous breasts. Well, all of those men were exes now and she’d decided Clive McGruder was working hard at this moment to get on that list.

“And how was the old water-sports?” Clive asked. His eyes betrayed that he was simply making conversation and was only marginally interested in any reply she might give.

“Apart from the fact that Thursbey is an underwater Hitler, it’s been going pretty well. I’ve managed to keep up with all the skills and there’s another girl, a Chinese policewoman, who seems really sweet, so we have a laugh.”

“No blokes then?”

“An American guy, Frankie.” She chuckled and paused to take hold of the wine that had arrived. “He’s completely useless. The Major’s always yelling at him and making him do extra practice on his skills.” She took a sip from the Chardonnay. “But I think I could get good at this. It’s just really amazing being underwater and listening to yourself breathe…”

Clive grunted in reply and stubbed out his cigarette. He sat back insolently, crossed his arms, and looked at her. She tried to smile but he wasn’t sharing her excitement at the new sub-aqua challenge. Clive was a short, chunky man and his hair was beginning to recede at the same rate as his gut was swelling from the regular imbibing of beer. He’d once been handsome but his features were fleshy now, with what Madeleine had heard some girls describe as “oriental dissipation.” People tended to drink and eat a lot in Asia because it was part of the lifestyle, and after a certain age it began to show on the figure. It certainly did with her boyfriend.

They’d known each other over two years but had only been an item for six months. If things continued like this she wasn’t sure it would last longer than another two weeks. Madeleine wondered if he was doing it deliberately. She said, “You’ve got your diving certification, haven’t you?”

He nodded. “I used to dive a lot a few years back. I got up to Rescue Diver.”

“So why don’t we go on a dive trip to Thailand together. It would be fun and…” she hesitated for a moment over the phrase, “sort of romantic.”

Clive turned down the corners of his mouth. He seemed to consider her words, took a big swig of his Kilkenny, and replied, “There’s too much shit going on at work. You know that. I can’t just go off and jolly around for a week’s holiday. Maybe at Christmas but not now.”

Madeleine took a deep breath. “You really don’t want to do anything that might be fun for us as a couple.”

“I didn’t say that,” he said stonily.

“Why won’t you come on a trip with me? We’ll go diving, enjoy good food…”

“I don’t have time.”

“That’s not it, really, Clive. You just don’t want to put any effort into this relationship anymore.”

He opened his eyes wide. “What do you mean ‘effort’? What’s this? I’m sitting here in a pub in Tsim Sha Tsui waiting for over an hour for you to turn up. I think that’s a lot of effort.”

“I’m sorry if you got the time wrong and turned up an hour early.”

“Well, at least the waitresses were horny to look at.”

“You pig.”

He shrugged casually.

“That’s all?” Madeleine asked. “You think telling me the waitresses look better than me shows how committed you are to this relationship?”

“Whatever,” he replied and tapped another cigarette from his box. Madeleine sighed and stared at the fake Irish fireplace in the corner. What am I doing with this piss-head loser anyway?

She tried one more time. “So if I sign up for a dive trip to Thailand you won’t come with me?”

“I’d like to, honey, but no can do.”

“Don’t honey me, you patronizing slob. If you can’t be bothered with this relationship then just say so. Be direct. Isn’t that what men always pride themselves on doing?”

“I never said I didn’t want to bother with this relationship. You put those words out there. I said you were late.”

“And you didn’t have the courtesy to wait until I arrived before you stuffed your face with potato skins or whatever.”

“What have potato skins got to do with this argument?”

Madeleine bit her lip and stared at Clive with an inner fury that would have shaken the pots and pans in the kitchen if she’d let it come out. She held it in.

The steak and kidney pie arrived and she attacked it with knife and fork. Clive watched her with languid amusement. His eyes had become bloodshot and there was a glaze over them telling Madeleine there was no point in continuing the conversation. He was at that level of drunkenness which meant he was on the verge of becoming rude and unreasonable.

“I’m going over to Wanchai to meet some guys from the Rugby Club. There’s a football match on later,” he said, killing his cigarette in the ashtray and draining his glass of Kilkenny.

“You’re an arse-hole,” Madeleine simply said and resumed digging into her food. The fury had subsided and was gradually being replaced by a quiet sadness. This may not be the end but it was most certainly the beginning of the end. She’d been at this point before, with other men, but in the past she’d always been good at deluding herself. In Hong Kong matters had a more stark reality. Life was lived in bold, harsh color in this stark city.

Clive put a five hundred dollar note on the table then stood up and left the pub without another word.

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